Thanks to the success of The Conjuring 2, Warner Bros. gave a greenlight to two different spin-offs to expand on The Conjuring Universe -- but to date we've only seen one of them make their way through production. Fans got a kick out of seeing Corin Hardy's The Nun this past weekend, but are still waiting on the arrival of The Crooked Man. We haven't even heard an update about the project since August 2017 -- but now Peter Safran has provided us with an update:
We're still working on the script for it. The bar is set very high for the movies that we want to make in in The Conjuring Universe, and until we get to that place we're not interested in putting one of these out there into the universe. I still think The Crooked Man could be a very interesting and different story.
With the news that Annabelle 3 is filming this fall and that Conjuring 3 will be in production next year, you might have thought that the franchise forgot about The Crooked Man, but the truth is that the project is still making its way through development. Peter Safran didn't offer any news about the specific timeline for the project when I spoke to him last week, but it sounds like the reason for that is because there currently isn't one.
So why is The Crooked Man taking so much longer to gestate and develop than The Nun? According to Peter Safran, it's primarily about making sure that the film stands out as a different kind of story being told within the larger Conjuring Universe. There is a strong base established, with the titular monster certainly being one of the most terrifying visions created in The Conjuring 2, but the filmmakers want to make sure that the spin-off legitimately gives them the opportunity to try something unique. Said Safran,
One of the reasons we were excited to make The Nun is it looks and feels very different than the other films in the Conjuring Universe, in the sense that we take it out of the ordinary, Northeast United States, the look and feel of a regular home, and we transplanted to Romania in the 1950s, an abbey, all of that. We're always looking to make sure that we don't repeat ourselves. The Crooked Man has a very different look and feel, or will have a very different look and feel, than the other films in the universe.
Unlike The Nun - who was the big bad in The Conjuring 2, and had an origin of sorts hinted at in Annabelle: Creation -- the path for The Crooked Man going forward is a bit unclear. Within Lorraine Warren's revelation that the demon Valak was pulling all of the strings in the 2016 film came the suggestion that The Crooked Man was just a pawn in the whole scheme. If that's the case, there isn't much established that the filmmakers can build on. It's possible that Annabelle 3 could wind up being useful, as the story will be set in the Warren's museum of haunted objects that ultimately houses the spooky zoetrope in The Conjuring 2, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Fans of The Conjuring Universe can see The Nun in theaters now, and we'll continue to update you with the latest news about the franchise here on CinemaBlend.
