James Wan is a busy guy. Not only is he currently getting drenched on the set of the DC Extended Universe film AQUAMAN, which he'll be working on for the next sixteen months, but he's also overseeing the building of his own cinematic universe, The Conjuring Universe, which revolves around his films THE CONJURING and THE CONJURING 2.
THE CONJURING led to a spin-off, ANNABELLE (directed by CONJURING cinematographer John R. Leonetti), which has a prequel coming out this Friday, August 11th – LIGHTS OUT director David F. Sandberg's ANNABELLE: CREATION.
Beyond the release of CREATION, we can expect to see at least two spin-offs come out of THE CONJURING 2. First up is THE NUN, which just wrapped production and was directed by THE HALLOW's Corin Hardy. That will be followed by THE CROOKED MAN, which is at the beginning of its development process.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Wan had this to say about the different styles of films that exist within the Conjuring Universe, and what kind of style THE CROOKED MAN will be aiming for:
…we think we have a really exciting story (for The Crooked Man). What we want to do, with the Conjuring Universe, is we want each of our little offshoots to have a very different flavor, right? So, for example, Annabelle is the classic sort-of haunted doll subgenre. And with The Crooked Man, I would love to push it more down somewhat of that dark fairytale, and more whimsical, subgenre. I love the idea that, within the Conjuring universe, each of our little movies all have their own flavor, so that way they don’t feel like they’re the same films."
Also in development is THE CONJURING 3, which Wan isn't likely to direct, since he'll still be working on AQUAMAN.
We’ve been working hard on Conjuring 3. Of course, that is something that I am not neglecting. The Conjuring films are still the mothership and the mothership needs to be strong. [Laughs] The mothership needs to be strong for all these other jet fighters to shoot out of. So, we’re in the midst of working on the script, and still hashing [it] out. We want to make sure that the script is in a really good place. With how much people have loved the first two Conjuring, I don’t want to rush in to the third one if possible."
Of course, whenever a cinematic universe comes up, there's always the question of whether or not it will be following the example of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which started out with individual films that introduced characters who teamed up as THE AVENGERS in a huge crossover film. When asked about it by EW, Wan was open to the idea of doing a big crossover within the Conjuring Universe:
If I could pull off an Avengers of the Conjuring universe, I would love for that to happen. We’ll see. It could be fun."
Bathsheba vs. Annabelle vs. The Enfield Poltergeist vs. The Nun vs. The Crooked Man? I think the Conjuring Universe is probably better off keeping its evil spirits separate.