James Wan has become one of the biggest names in horror over the last decade as the mind behind the Saw franchise and The Conjuring Universe. While the latter of these has been pulling in horror fans since 2013, one of its upcoming spin-offs centered on the character of The Crooked Man is now moving ahead according to the director. For reasons that he said are “outside of my control," while The Nun 2 and The Conjuring 4 are still very much alive, we will not be seeing a Crooked Man movie anytime soon.
James Wan has not released any new movies this year thanks to the numerous release delays of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but 2023 will see the release of several of his productions including M3GAN, Insidious: Fear The Dark, The Last Train To New York and potentially the big screen version of Salem’s Lot if it regains a release date at WBD. For those expecting to see The Crooked Man joining those movies, Wan shared some disappointing news on his Instagram account. Sharing a picture of himself with the creepy character, Wan commented:
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
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“Throwback to my tall friend, the Crooked Man played by the incredible @jbotet. Javier’s movement was almost supernatural, some people knocked the character for being CGI. I filmed him in slowmo and reverse playback — all old-school camera trickery. And no, unfortunately the spin-off movie with this character isn’t happening. Outside of my control. But maybe one day.”
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How Will The Conjuring 4 Expand on the Franchise?
Like many horror franchises, The Conjuring is one that just refuses to die. Not content with a main story being spread out over multiple movies, Wan has overseen a host of spin-offs such as Annabelle and The Nun, which themselves have led to further movies. While The Crooked Man seems to have fallen by the wayside, The Nun 2 is set to be released next year and The Conjuring 4 will be released soon afterward.
Currently, there is little known about where The Conjuring 4 will take its central characters, but with the franchise being based on the supposedly true cases of Ed and Lorraine Warren there are plenty of places the franchise could go next. As one of the most prolific and profitable horror franchises of recent years, it is quite surprising that the Crooked Man spin-off has been put out of contention as another potential money-spinning extension of the franchise. Back when the movie was originally announced, Wan said of the film:
“Early stages, kind of like cooking away. But we think we have a really exciting story. What we want to do, with The Conjuring universe, is we want each of our little offshoots to have a very different flavor, right? So, for example, Annabelle is the classic sort-of haunted doll subgenre. And with The Crooked Man, I would love to push it more down somewhat of that dark fairytale, and more whimsical, subgenre. I love the idea that, within the Conjuring universe, each of our little movies all have their own flavor, so that way they don’t feel like they’re the same films.”
