There are a lot of big movies that were supposed to come out this year but either haven’t or won’t, many of which already had trailers and posters and tie-in Lego sets, so it can be easy to forget a few of them. For example, did you know a third Conjuring movie—called The Devil Made Me Do It, which is a pretty good name—was supposed to come out in September? If not, no worries. The movie has been bumped all the way to next June, specifically June 4, 2021.
This is a different tactic than what Warner Bros. used for Tenet, which was finally delayed indefinitely after being pushed back a few weeks multiple times. The lack of a concrete premiere date there means Warner Bros. really wants to get it in theaters in 2020, but this Conjuring sequel getting a new date presumably means that the studio didn’t want to gamble on having two major movies release in the last few miserable months of this miserable year. Plus, since The Devil Made Me Do It had yet to receive the marketing push that Tenet was getting before the pandemic really took off (and then continued taking off for several months), it must be relatively easy for Warner Bros. to just slide it back to a different day. No putting out a new trailer with a new date, no putting tape over that spot on the posters, and no stopping the rollout of the Lorraine Warren’s Helicopter Lego set. Actually, movie theaters surely aren’t putting out posters, and the Lorraine Warren’s Helicopter Lego set is a thing we made up, but you get the idea.
This news comes from Collider, which says this installment in the franchise is about an accused murderer claiming that a demon was controlling him. Hold on, the Warrens being involved in a lawsuit that hinges on the existence of a supernatural entity? Is this an excuse to bring up the most exciting lawsuit we’ve ever covered here at The A.V. Club? A lawsuit that was disappointingly settled before anyone tried to actually put a ghost on the stand? Because we just brought it up!