If you're looking forward to seeing what LIGHTS OUT director David F. Sandberg can do with the creepy doll Annabelle, who was first introduced in THE CONJURING and then got her own poorly received spin-off, you're going to have to wait a few extra months. Warner Bros. has made some changes to their 2017 release schedule, and in the shuffle Sandberg's ANNABELLE 2 has been pushed back from its previously announced May 19 date to a new date of August 11, 2017.
Genre films have scored some good success in Augusts past, from FREDDY VS. JASON in 2003 to DON'T BREATHE in 2016, so ANNABELLE 2 has a chance to do well in this new slot.
Scripted by Gary Dauberman, who also wrote the first ANNABELLE, this sequel centers on
a dollmaker and his wife whose daughter tragically dies. Twenty years later they decide to open their home to a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage. When the dollmaker's possessed creation Annabelle sets her sights on the children, it turns their shelter into a storm of horror.
I'm not quite sure how this story would fit into the ANNABELLE – THE CONJURING timeline, but ANNABELLE contradicted THE CONJURING anyway, so I don't think continuity is a major concern here.
ANNABELLE 2 stars Miranda Otto, Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Anthony LaPaglia, Lulu Wilson, Philippa Anne Coulthard, Grace Fulton, Lou Lou Safran, Samara Lee, and Tayler Buck.