'The Conjuring 2' Pushed Back to 2016, James Wan Returning to Direct

Although The Conjuring spinoff, Annabelle, has proven to be a big success at the box office, New Line Cinema is not rushing the sequel to the first film in the franchise.

The Conjuring 2, which was originally scheduled to hit theaters on October 23, 2015, has now been pushed back to sometime in 2016. In its place, an untitled horror film will be released. If there's good news in the delay, it's that James Wan, who directed the first film, will now be able to return, since he'll be finished with Fast & Furious 7 (due for release on April 3, 2015) long before then. The Conjuring 2, with Wan at the helm, will reportedly begin shooting next summer.

"We had a great experience with James on The Conjuring, and we give him a lot of credit for that movie working so well," said Toby Emmerich, the President and Chief Financial Officer at New Line Cinema. "He worked on the screenplay and came to the table with very inventive things that were not in the script and cast it fantastically well. Add to that his work in producing Annabelle, and he is one of the masters of the genre and we’re happy to have him. You go through the list of possible directors of The Conjuring sequel, and his is the name you stop at, which is why we tried so hard to make this work."

Of course, you'd think that, with the success of Annabelle, New Line Cinema would want to strike while the iron is hot, but it's actually kind of admirable that they aren't just rushing into a sequel for the sake of profit. But a longer wait doesn't necessarily mean a better movie, so one wonders if it might not have been smarter to just hurry a sequel through the pipeline. Whether or not New Line's decision proves to be a wise choice remains to be seen, but either way, we won't know for at least two years.

Via: Entertainment Weekly / Deadline

Credit: New Line Cinema