Given how cheap most horror movies are to produce, at least when compared to other blockbusters, the genre is almost always profitable, but James Wan's The Conjuring Universe is on another level. As The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It has now grossed over $196 million worldwide, which pushes the franchise's grand total to over $2 billion. With just eight films in the series at the moment, that's mighty impressive.
The franchise kicked off in 2013 with The Conjuring, a highly effective supernatural horror film that starred Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. With a budget of just $20 million, the film went on to gross $319 million worldwide, which sparked a string of sequels and spin-offs including Annabelle, The Conjuring 2, Annabelle: Creation, The Nun, The Curse of La Llorona, Annabelle Comes Home, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. There are several more Conjuring movies that are in development, including a sequel to The Nun and a spin-off focusing on The Crooked Man from The Conjuring 2. Hey, there's a lot more frights to be had… and a lot more money to be made.
The most recent Conjuring film debuted in theaters and on HBO Max last month and found Ed and Lorraine Warren tackling one of the most sensational cases from their files. "It starts with a fight for the soul of a young boy," reads the official synopsis, "then takes them beyond anything they'd ever seen before, to mark the first time in U.S. history that a murder suspect would claim demonic possession as a defense." You can check out a review of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It from our own JimmyO right here.