2023 marks the tenth anniversary of James Wan’s 2013 horror film The Conjuring. The production made a major impact on the genre and, unlike various other Hollywood attempts, The Conjuring managed to spawn its own cinematic universe. But there is one major mystery regarding The Conjuring and its subsequent shared universe that the filmmakers have finally answered.
The upcoming spin-off, The Nun II, will be the eighth official film in the franchise’s continuity. Some fans may be confused, however, as counting the 2019 film The Curse of La Llorona makes it the ninth. Now Michael Chaves, director of The Curse of La Llorona, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and The Nun II has explained the mystery. As he shared while speaking with EW about the film’s mysterious place (or lack thereof) in the series:
“There’s so much debate about it and I think I’ve played coy in the past,” Chaves begins. “The idea was that [the Annabelle cameo] was going to be this little hidden thing that you were going to discover as you watch the movie. One of the reasons that it couldn’t formally be a part of the Conjuring Universe is it didn’t include one of the key producers, Peter Safran. The Conjuring is his baby, him and James, and they are still the two core producers on it.”
Though it was Peter Safran who allowed the use of Annabelle in the film:
“Peter still gave his permission to let [Annabelle] be in there. The funny thing is that it was supposed to be a secret, it was supposed to be this Easter Egg, and [when the film premiered at] SXSW, there was a slip-up. The presenter introduced the movie as the next entry in the Conjuring universe. So that was a big kind of faux pas.
“It was a big mess-up, and that’s the truth of how that all came together.”
Likewise, producer Peter Safran agrees that the film can’t be counted as part of the franchise. Though he does credit the film for being the reason that Michael Chaves was brought onboard.
“You can’t count it!” Safran tells EW. “It periodically gets lumped in because of Chaves and because of Atomic Monster, but it is not officially part of the universe. By the way, I think Chaves did a great job on the movie, which is why we stole him for the Conjuring universe.”
Perhaps fans can consider it loosely canon, in the same way that Jason Goes to Hell loosely references Evil Dead. As for being an official installment, however, it looks like the mystery has been solved. The Curse of La Llorona is its own stand-alone horror film.