THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
THE DECIL'S WORK
HAVING GROSSED $1.8 BILLION WORLDWIDE, THE CONJURING UNIVERSE IS OFFICIALLY THE MOST SUCCESSFUL HORROR FRANCHISE EVER. AS THE LATEST FILM HITS CINEMAS, WE CATCH UP WITH DIRECTOR MICHAEL CHAVES AND PRODUCER PETER SAFRAN
WORDS: STEVE O’BRIEN
I T WAS ONCE COMMON WISDOM IN Hollywood that horror franchises don’t do big numbers. Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Saw et al may have their cheerleaders, but box officewise, they’re small fry next to your Fast & Furious flicks and your Pirates Of The Caribbeans, billion-dollar juggernauts that keep studio execs in Lamborghinis and Mayan Sicar cigars.
That was until The Conjuring came along.
Few expected James Wan’s 2013 supernatural scarefest to hit like it did. After all, Wan’s previous feature, 2010’s Insidious, had grossed just under $100 million worldwide, which was considered pretty decent for a mid-budget horror. So when The Conjuring ended up as one of the best performing movies of 2013, grossing a whopping $320 million against a $20 million budget, it rewrote the rules on what horror films could do commercially.
Since then, we’ve had the inevitable The Conjuring 2, plus a further five spin-offs – three Annabelle films, The Nun and The Curse Of La Llorona – all set in the “Conjuring universe”, a vast horror ecosystem overseen by James Wan and his producer partner Peter Safran.
The Conjuring films, which orbit around real-life “paranormal investigators” Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), are the mothership movies, however. Now, five years after the second film, comes The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, which sees Wan handing the directorial reins to The Curse Of La Llorona’s Michael Chaves.