The Conjuring 4 is resurrecting one of its old creative choices in its possible pick for director.
According to THR, Michael Chaves is in negotiations to direct the movie, which is reportedly being billed as the final film in the main Conjuring series. To that end, Warner Bros. said at last year's Cinemacon that it would be titled The Conjuring: Last Rites, although THR reports that the movie is simply being referred to as The Conjuring 4 at the moment.
Chaves is no stranger the Conjuring universe, having previously directed 2021's The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It as well as spinoff The Nun II. He made his directorial debut on The Curse of La Llorona, although Chaves has said repeatedly that that's not an official entry in The Conjuring franchise. Plot details of The Conjuring 4 are currently unknown, but David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who co-wrote The Devil Made Me Do It with James Wan, handled the screenplay, per THR.
Wan, who directed the first two Conjuring movies and continues to write and produce on the franchise, previously teased that the fourth film would be the series' last in an interview with Collider last year.
"We kind of want to just take our time to make sure we get it right and to make sure the emotion of the Warren stories that we want to tell, and moving into, and potentially wrapping up, we just want to make sure that it's the right thing, the right story that we're telling," he said at the time. He stopped short, however, of confirming that it would truly be the end, adding "We never know. You never know. We'll see."
The Conjuring Universe Continues
It's worth noting, however, that the Conjuring has expanded far beyond the Ed and Lorraine Warren-focused main series, crafting an entire cinematic universe that's proven impressively reliable at the box office. Between the Conjuring movies and spinoffs for Annabelle and The Nun, the franchise has pulled in a combined $2.1 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing horror franchise ever.
Plus, it looks like the series will possess TV as well, with Warner Bros. saying last year that a The Conjuring television series is in the works for Max.
We gave The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It a 6/10 back in 2021, with Tom Jorgensen calling it "a mixed bag that doesn’t quite balance its interesting central mystery with the scares followers of the franchise have come to expect."
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
