David F. Sandberg is returning to horror with a feature expansion of two of his short films

David F. Sandberg had a decade of short film directing credits before he made his feature debut with the 2016 film Lights Out – which happened to be a feature expansion of a short he made a few years earlier. The success of Lights Out allowed him to move on to direct Annabelle: Creation, Shazam!, and Shazam! Fury of the Gods… although, unfortunately, a Lights Out sequel fell by the wayside in the meantime. Sandberg recently confirmed to Collider that he’ll be returning to the horror genre for his next feature – which is based on not just one but two of his short films!

When asked if he’ll be returning to horror any time soon, Sandberg told Collider about the short-to-feature project he’s developing. “We’re working on that, actually. That’s on the way. I can’t say which (short films it’s based on), but it’s actually two. I’m definitely doing horror next. I’m very eager to get back to that because it feels like I have so much more to do. I have so much more horror in me. I was just getting started with Annabelle: Creation, and then I took a superhero detour.“

As mentioned, Lights Out turned out very well for Sandberg, earning almost $150 million at the global box office on a budget just under $5 million. Distributor Warner Bros. and producer James Wan were impressed enough by his work on that film to give him the job of directing a prequel to the Conjuring Universe film Annabelle. Annabelle: Creation earned over $305 million on a budget of $15 million, so Warner Bros. put Sandberg at the helm of their DC Comics adaptation Shazam! That film gave Sandberg the highest box office of his career to date, earning almost $368 million worldwide. Of course, it also had a substantially higher budget than his horror projects, costing somewhere in the range of $100 million. Still, that was enough for Warner Bros. to greenlight a sequel with a slightly higher budget. Unfortunately, the box office of Shazam! Fury of the Gods barely surpassed the budget, sputtering out at less than $134 million. So it’s easy to understand why Sandberg is ending his “superhero detour” and going back to the scary stuff.

What do you think of David F. Sandberg returning to horror? Are there any Sandberg shorts you would like to see get the feature treatment? Let us know by leaving a comment below.