The Crooked Man: James Wan confirms the Conjuring Universe film has been scrapped

The first The Conjuring film got a spin-off, Annabelle, that was so success it spawned a franchise of its own. So it made sense when it was announced that The Conjuring 2 was going to get two spin-offs. One was The Nun, which is now getting a sequel. The other was The Crooked Man. But five years have passed since The Crooked Man was first announced, and there has been no sign that it was ever close to production. Now producer James Wan has confirmed that The Crooked Man has been scrapped.

Wan took to Instagram to share some behind-the-scenes images of him and the Crooked Man on the set of The Conjuring 2, and said, “Throwback to my tall friend, the Crooked Man played by the incredible Javier Botet. Javier’s movement was almost supernatural, some people knocked the character for being CGI. I filmed him in slowmo and reverse playback — all old-school camera trickery. And no, unfortunately the spin-off movie with this character isn’t happening. Outside of my control. But maybe one day.

Years ago, Wan told Entertainment Weekly that “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.” Wan said there was a really exciting story in place for The Crooked Man, but he never shared any details.

I could never work up much enthusiasm for the idea of the Crooked Man getting his own movie, so I’m not bothered to hear that this spin-off won’t be happening. Were you looking forward to The Crooked Man? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The Crooked Man

Source: Instagram

About the Author

Cody is a news editor and film critic, focused on the horror arm of JoBlo.com, and writes scripts for videos that are released through the JoBlo Originals and JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channels. In his spare time, he's a globe-trotting digital nomad, runs a personal blog called Life Between Frames, and writes novels and screenplays.