New Line confirms it would like some more money, begins development on The Conjuring 4

Those wacky Warrens will soon be at it again—“it,” in this case, presumably being “making New Line Cinema absolutely gob-smacking amounts of money on basically the least amount of budget imaginable”—as THR reports that horror sequel The Conjuring 4 is officially in development.

The film will, as its title implies, be the ninth or tenth movie in the Conjuring cinematic universe, which never met a spooky doll or creepy nun it wasn’t happy to detour off to for a quick horror spin-off or two. (The Nun 2: In theaters 2023!) Details about the new film are nil at present, but New Line has confirmed that Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga will be back as Ed and Lorraine Warren, who continues to be significantly more, uh, concrete, evidence-wise, in their paranormal investigators than they ever were in real life. David Leslie Johnson-McGodrick, who previously wrote both The Conjuring 2 and last year’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, will return to pen the script, while James Wan will take up his usual spot as producer, with no director announced. (Aquaman director Wan hasn’t directed an installment in the franchise he co-birthed with Peter Safran since Conjuring 2, although he frequently has a story credit on the more recent films.)

News of the sequel isn’t exactly surprising, because, seriously: The return on investment on these things has always been just wildly good. (The total budget for the entire extant franchise, across eight movies, is reportedly a measly $178 million; New Line and Warner Bros. have reaped $2.1 billion at the box office in response.) 2022 will, amazingly, only be the third year out of the last 10 that won’t have a Conjuring film in theaters. (The franchise previously missed 2015 and 2020, although 2019 did get two in, in the form of The Curse Of La Llarona and Annabelle Comes Home.) No word yet on when Conjuring 4 is expected to land.