The Conjuring is one of the best horror movies of all time, so it’s no wonder over a decade later, the franchise surrounding it is still alive and kicking. Following The Nun II bringing more horrors from the series to the big screen this past fall, now The Conjuring 4 is really starting to move forward in development now that a director has been chosen for it.
Michael Chaves has helmed the past two movies from the Conjuring movies, and now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he’ll be keeping them coming as the director of the fourth Conjuring movie. As it joins upcoming horror movies, it will also allegedly be the final installment for the movie series. And to be clear, that doesn’t mean The Conjuring universe is necessarily sending off, just the main Conjuring films.
Per the report, Chaves is currently in “negotiations” to direct the movie after he has become somewhat of a mainstay in the franchise in recent years. Chaves directed 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It before moving to the last spinoff in the universe we’ve seen since then, The Nun II.
When Chaves was promoting The Nun Ii, he shared that the movie’s mid-credit scene served as a message to fans to tease that the finale installment of the main Conjuring movies was on the way. It was previously announced that the movie might be called The Conjuring: Last Rites and deal with the exorcism of Maurice "Frenchie" Theriault. Conjuring producer James Wan previously shared a year ago plans to potentially wrap up The Conjuring movies at the fourth movie, and now it looks like it’s very much heading in that direction.
The Conjuring 4 was initially announced back in October 2022 with word that the writer behind the last two Conjuring movies, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, would be back to pen the next script. James Wan is also set to produce the movie with Peter Safran. While it has not yet been confirmed, we certainly expect Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson to once again play Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are fictional versions of real paranormal investigators who took part in some prominent hauntings throughout their lives.
While both movies from Chaves in The Conjuring franchise have left critics rather mixed, audiences have enjoyed them and they’ve made good money at the box office, too. The Devil Made Me Do It made $206 million worldwide off of a reported $39 million production budget while last year’s The Nun II made $269 million worldwide against a similar budget.
Chaves signing on for The Conjuring 4 would make him the director of the franchise who has made the most movies from the universe, beating out James Wan, who helmed 2013’s The Conjuring and 2016’s The Conjuring 2 before stepping back to produce the franchise. While there’s no release date set for the horror movie yet, the fourth Conjuring movie is most definitely starting to gear up for production.
