I loved Insidious -- like really loved it – and totally dug Death Sentence, so I’m looking forward to James Wan’s next horror/ghost story (even though I’m lukewarm on his Saw film). Titled The Conjuring, the picture is in pre-production and is bustling through the casting process. Insidious star Patrick Wilson and the great Vera Farmiga recently signed, and now we know who’ll join them.
THR, which broke the first story, reports that Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor are also part of Wan’s growing ensemble, which will begin filming in North Carolina this March. The story follows husband-and-wife demonologists (played by Wilson and Farmiga) who investigate a Rhode Island couple complaining that their farmhouse is haunted. Livingston (Office Space) and Taylor (Say Anything) would play the spooked couple.
The trade also says that Wan's film is now operating under a working title of The Untitled Warren Files Project, so don’t grow too attached to The Conjuring. Chad and Carey Hayes are credited with the screenplay, which claims to be based on factual events that occurred to the Perron family in the 1970s. New Line, in acquiring the pitch, claimed the rights to the story of the Perrons as well as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, so we’ll see what specific changes are made between now and release.
Either way, I'm thrilled that Wan’s staying with ghost stories for the foreseeable future. He might have helped define the current torture-horror genre with Saw, and showed potential with Sentence. But his Insidious was truly terrifying, and I want to see if he can move to Rhode Island and maintain those ghostly tensions.
