The Conjuring Universe Isn’t Done With You: Producer Teases Wave of New Movies and TV
Last Rites was meant to close the book on The Conjuring, but producer Peter Safran says the hauntings aren’t over yet, with more films and TV projects still on the table.
So much for goodbyes. The Conjuring: Last Rites was pitched as the curtain call, but when your supposed finale scares up roughly $494 million worldwide, nobody at Warner Bros. is reaching for the lights. The studio is already eyeing what comes next, and producer Peter Safran sounds very ready to keep the hauntings going.
'I think that Last Rites shows that there is a lot of fuel left in the tank,' Safran told Entertainment Weekly.
Translation: the Warrens are not packing up the Annabelle case files just yet.
Where Last Rites actually left things
Safran frames Last Rites as the end of one specific version of The Conjuring saga: the Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga era as Ed and Lorraine Warren. Not the end-end, just the cap on that particular arc. And the movie quietly set up the next wave by properly introducing Mia Tomlinson as Judy Warren and Ben Hardy as Tony Spera, Judy’s future husband. Safran says audiences responded to those two, which is exactly what you do if you’re testing the waters for a next-generation handoff.
Why the studio is moving fast
A franchise that has pulled in about $2.7 billion across nine films is not going to sit idle if there’s more story to mine and a fanbase still showing up. Safran even points out that people have been along for this ride for roughly a dozen years, and they still want more. He is also pretty open about the team seeing opportunities in both film and TV.
What is actually next
- HBO is developing a Conjuring TV series. Nancy Won (Jessica Jones) is running the show as writer and executive producer, with Peter Cameron (WandaVision) and Cameron Squires (Gen V) on the writing team. Plot specifics are locked up, but the series is designed to continue the thread from the movies rather than spin off into something unrelated.
- On the film side, there is chatter about a Conjuring prequel in the works. Nothing official yet, but the rumor mill is warm.
My read
This is one of those franchise moments where the 'final chapter' turned out to be more of a pause button than a stop sign. The setup with Judy and Tony feels deliberate, the HBO play makes sense if they want to expand the case-file world, and the box office explains why everyone is eager to keep rolling. Personally, I would not hate a short breather to build some anticipation before the next possession party, but clearly, the door is still open and the lights are still flickering.