According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Wan and Peter Safran are already hard at work on The Conjuring 4, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick will be returning to pen the script. In addition to writing the scripts for the second and third Conjuring films, as well as Wan’s upcoming DCEU sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which will star The Conjuring’s Patrick Wilson and Jason Momoa, Johnson-McGoldrick is a fan favourite and regular collaborator with the director.
Wan announced the announcement on Instagram, confirming the return of both Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who plays his counterpart in the Conjuring world.
Together, they have starred in four of the eight films that make up Wan’s Conjuring universe as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Recently, in the summer of 2021, Wilson and Farmiga returned to their roles as the Warrens in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, which increased the cumulative gross of the franchise to over $2.1 billion. After only three films and a total budget of $178 million, The Conjuring has become the highest-grossing horror series of all time and one of the most profitable franchises in media history. Michael Chaves, who directed The Devil Made Me Do It, is also at the helm of The Nun 2, another spin-off from the Conjuring world that began filming in France earlier this month.
The director of The Conjuring 4 has not been announced, although Chaves is a possibility. Johnson-McGoldrick has written horror before, beginning with the disturbing 2009 thriller Orphan, which also has a stellar performance from Farmiga. As recently as last year, the author came back for a second time to create the prequel novella Orphan: First Kill. Despite the fact that no information regarding the narrative of the fourth instalment in the Conjuring franchise has been made public as of yet, Johnson-McGoldrick has thousands of files worth of source material to draw from thanks to the series’ reliance on the actual cases of Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Wilson and Farmiga’s Ed and Lorraine have unmistakable chemistry and an unshakable bond, and it’s what makes the Conjuring movies work so well. Johnson-McGoldrick tweeted after a viewing of the third film: “When I was writing this script, it was crucial to me that Ed and Lorraine never get into an argument. One of their appeals is the fact that they have the ideal romantic partnership that so many of us strive for.” Thus, he is the one person we can have faith in to provide us with more eerie experiences with these individuals.
There is no set release date for The Conjuring 4.