Ahead of the release of its official trailer, New Line Cinema has dropped the first-look photo for the long-awaited horror sequel The Nun 2, teasing Taissa Farmiga’s return as Sister Irene.
Shared by EW, the image features a horrified Irene who gets surrounded by faceless nuns, as the evil entity from Romania has come back to haunt her. Audiences last saw Farmiga’s character trying to banish Valak with the blood of Christ at the end of the 2018 movie. Despite escaping the nightmare in Romania, Irene wasn’t aware that her efforts to defeat the demon weren’t enough, as Valak managed to leave the monastery by possessing Jonas Bloquet’s Frenchie, who turned out to be the character that will tie the spin-off to Ed and Lorraine Warren.
The Nun 2 is directed by Michael Chaves from a screenplay written by Akela Cooper, Ian Goldberg, and Richard Naing. This marks the latest directorial project in James Wan’s The Conjuring Universe after previously directing 2019’s The Curse of La Llorona and 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. The sequel will be set four years following the events of the first installment, which will see Farmiga, Bloquet, and Bonnie Aarons reprising their respective roles as Sister Irene, Frenchie/ Maurice, and Valak.
According to Chaves, the story will follow Sister Irene trying to move on from her traumatic experience by “living an anonymous life in this convent in Italy.” Meanwhile, audiences will meet Maurice in France, where “he’s working at this boarding school as kind of a handyman.” In addition to its returning cast, The Last of Us star Storm Reid has also joined the supernatural thriller as a hesitant novitiate who “gets pulled along with Irene on this mission, on this journey, hunting down Maurice through these horrible events that happen.”
The Conjuring Franchise’s Expanding Universe
Besides The Nun 2, New Line Cinema is also currently developing the fourth installment to the blockbuster horror franchise titled The Conjuring: Last Rites. Further details about its plot are still being kept under wraps, but Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are expected to return as the legendary paranormal experts. In a previous interview, Wan confirmed that they’re taking their time working on Last Rites, teasing that this may potentially wrap up Ed and Lorraine Warren’s stories. Warner Bros. Discovery also confirmed that Wan and franchise producer Peter Safran began developing an untitled TV spin-off for Max set within The Conjuring universe.
Wan recently explained how the idea for The Conjuring Universe came to be, revealing that the success of 2014’s Annabelle made them realize the potential of the franchise. “It happened organically, but in the back of our minds, we always knew that the Warrens investigated so many different cases and that they had a museum of haunted artifacts,” he said. “Annabelle is the crown jewel of the Warrens’ collection, and so a spinoff movie was a natural stepping stone. And after Annabelle became successful, we realized that The Conjuring could become the mothership to spawn other stories.”
The Nun 2 is scheduled to arrive in theaters on Sept. 8.
Source: EW