It took a full five years, but The Nun II is finally coming our way next month, serving as a sequel to 2018’s wildly successful spin-off within The Conjuring universe. But as is always the case with horror, few things are ever truly allowed to end so long as there is a story to tell. And, perhaps more importantly, if there is money to be made. To that end, director Michael Chaves has weighed in on The Nun 3 and whether or not that is actually a possibility. Spoiler alert: it’s totally possible.
Chaves, who also directed The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, recently spoke with the folks at SFX Magazine (via GamesRadar). The filmmaker was asked whether or not we’ve seen the last of the demon nun Valak. In other words, is The Nun 3 in the cards. Chaves, without getting into spoilers, made his position pretty clear.
“There’s a line in the movie: ‘Demons are infinite.’ I like the idea that she’s always been here in different forms. I think that there’s still more stories of Valak the demon nun to be told.”
We first met Valak in The Conjuring 2, serving as one of the more memorably terrifying parts of that film. Much like Annabelle before her, Valak got her very own spin-off with director Corin Hardy’s The Nun. Hard as it may be to believe, that film remains the highest-grossing entry in The Conjuring universe to date, earning $363 million at the box office. The only surprising thing at all is that it took so long to get a sequel made. And if that sequel does similarly big business, there is no question that Warner Bros. would turn this into a full-blown trilogy.
The upcoming follow-up once again follows Taisa Farmiga’s Sister Irene. It takes place in France in 1956 and focuses on a priest who is murdered and the incident brings Irene face-to-face with Valak once again. Speaking further, Chaves discussed the timeline of the franchise, which sort of gets at how a third Nun film might be able to fit into what already exists. As he explains, there’s plenty of room for more.
“I wouldn’t want to give anything away, but this is continuing the timeline. Anyone who saw the first Conjuring knows that Maurice is possessed and then exorcised by the Warrens, and we know that that happens in the late ’60s in the Conjuring timeline. This is set in the ’50s so we’re still a ways off from that. The events of what happens in between this starts to fill out that story a little bit more. There’s other big ideas and big swings in there, and it’s filled with a bunch of cool Easter eggs. Without giving anything away it continues to fill out the picture and the bigger canvas.”
The Nun II is set to hit theaters on September 8.
