Crossovers are common in Hollywood, but with the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hollywood has seen even more reason to go all in with interconnected cinematic worlds. This is most common in blockbuster superhero franchises, but in a recent featurette released ahead of the release of The Nun, horror master James Wan opened up and explained how The Conjuring team realized that they had a potential horror cinematic universe on their hands during production on the first film. Wan explained:
One of the things that occurred to all of us early on is, they have a superhero universe, why can't we do that in the horror world? When we were making the first Conjuring, it became very apparent to us that there could be a bigger universe -- so many other great stories that would be awesome to look into.
The Conjuring universe is uniquely-suited for the cinematic universe treatment. After all, with Ed and Lorraine Warren anchoring the entire universe, there are all sorts of different directions and avenues to explore on a horror timeline. James Wan and his team recognized this early on while making the first movie, and as Wan laid out in a recent Nun featurette, the continued success of superhero cinematic universes showed the team that something of this nature would be possible in the long run. Just think about it; if you have seen either of the main Conjuring movies, then you likely know just how deep the Warren family's archive runs.
Check out that featurette for The Nun, below!
A big part of the creation of The Conjuring universe has involved carving out a timeline that makes sense to audiences. The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 both take place in the 1970s, but Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation take place in the 1960s and the 1950s, respectively. Now, with the release of The Nun on the horizon for next month, The Conjuring franchise is going even further back to the early 1950s to explore how the Valak demon arrived in this universe.
Of course, horror-themed cinematic universes are slowly but surely starting to take shape in Hollywood. The Conjuring is arguably the most well-formed of the bunch, but Universal also recently tried to do something similar with The Dark Universe. That particular world is now on ice following the lackluster performance of The Mummy, but if new leadership is found, if it can take some cues from The Conjuring films, then we could see more horror cinematic universes begin to take shape.
As always, make sure to keep it here for more updates related to The Conjuring universe as new information about the franchise is made available to us. The Nun is set to debut in theaters on September 7, and if you want more details on the rest of this year's major movie releases, then you can head over to our comprehensive movie premiere guide and fill out your moviegoing calendars accordingly!
