While the box office success of THE CONJURING 2 pretty much guarantees that the core franchise of this cinematic universe will continue on alongside its spin-offs ANNABELLE 2 and THE NUN, it remains to be seen if director James Wan will be able to return to the helm for a third film – he is already attached to direct AQUAMAN, which has a 2018 release date, and ROBOTECH – or if he'll be passing the reins of this series over to other directors, as he has done with the other horror franchises he started, SAW and INSIDIOUS.
Even if Wan doesn't direct THE CONJURING 3, he will still be involved as a producer, and he already knows which direction he wants the next movie to go in. He told IGN,
I do have something specific but I'm not going to say it. But I will say this – I do think Conjuring 1 and 2 are both set in the 70s, I think Conjuring 3 has got to be set in the 80s."
Patrick Wilson, who plays real-life paranormal investigator Ed Warren in the CONJURING films, was sitting beside Wan when he said that and seemed very enthusiastic about the idea of a decade shift. Of course, Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who plays Ed's wife and fellow paranormal investigator Lorraine, would be required to return for THE CONJURING 3 to really do it properly. I don't want to see the Warrens recast.
The Warrens have a lot of case files the filmmakers could pull from to assemble stories for future installments in the series. While speaking with Wan recently, Eric Eisenberg of CinemaBlend brought up the idea of pitting the Warrens against werewolves in a third film, an idea which seemed to amuse Wan:
Maybe we can go and do it like a classic American Werewolf in London style. That would be awesome! The Warrens set against the backdrop of The Hound of Baskerville. That would be awesome. Thank you!
Eisenberg and Wan may have been joking around, but one of the Warren case files does indeed involve the couple attempting to save a man possessed by a werewolf demon. And they did work that case in the 1980s…
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