While Disney is successfully running the Marvel Cinematic Universe, everyone is trying to compete them with their own shared Universes. Sony recently announced Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters (SUMC) to start with Venom, Universal tried to launch The Dark Universe with The Mummy last year, and Warner Bros. now have 3 separate shared Universes altogether with the Worlds of DC, The Monsterverse and The Conjuring Universe (We will call it the ConVerse from here on). The Nun will be the latest entry in the same continuity set up by The Conjuring.
All four movies in the ConVerse have been really profitable for Warner Bros. The Conjuring brought in $319 Million worldwide at a budget of $20 Million. The Conjuring 2 had a budget of $40 Million and it brought in $320 Million worldwide. Annabelle grossed $257 Million in total at a budget of just $6.5 Million and Annabelle: Creation made $306 Million worldwide at a budget of $15 Million. Now, The Nun is also tracking an opening weekend of around $37 Million which would be more than what the Annabelle movies have brought till now.
The entire credit for this shared Universe obviously goes to The Conjuring as that was the movie which started it all. Annabelle got its movie because The Conjuring introduced the creepy doll in the first place. Now, The Nun is getting a movie because The Conjuring 2 introduces this horrifying character. You may think that where would the Universe go from The Nun. We will obviously get 1 sequel each for The Conjuring and Annabelle franchises to complete their trilogies and 2 more sequels for The Nun if it turns out to be as successful as the other two franchises.
But, WB is also developing another character to make its debut in the ConVerse. The Nun was not the only character to get introduced in The Conjuring 2, as we also got a very small arc of The Crooked Man in the movie as well. Javier Botet played the Crooked Man in the Conjuring and he was almost equally threatening as The Nun. He has confirmed that The Crooked Man would also get a solo movie in the upcoming future. The Studios have not officially confirmed the project to be under development but the actor has confirmed that the project is still in works.
“There’s no updates. The last update was a few months ago, they were speaking about what was going to be the next movie. But I think they were speaking about doing the third part of Annabelle. But since we were shooting The Conjuring 2, the producers told me that they had the plan, and they expect in the future we will be going to do the Crooked Man spin-off. The last year we’ve been speaking and they still have the intention and the screenplay is being done. I think they are changing, but the project exists, but there’s no new updates.”
This character has been taken up from an English Poem which says:
“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile. /He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile. /He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse. /And they all lived together in a little crooked house.”
It would be great to see the ConVerse take the boundaries of Horror even further. From what we have learned for ‘It’ is that even characters like Pennywise could work really well in Horror Movies and the Crooked Man is a little similar to that as well. Going further, The Conjuring 3 could bring some new character into the mix as well which would branch out yet another spin-off, who knows. As for when this movie may happen, we are not sure but Botet confessed that he hopes for the movie to happen real soon. He said:
“I hope it happens soon ’cause I love Crooked Man. I think it’s an amazing aesthetic creature and I would love to play that role.”
For now, let’s focus on The Nun which will come out on September 9. Here’s the official Synopsis:
“When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together, they uncover the order’s unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of a demonic nun.”
