A 2025 horror movie that set a new box office record for its franchise is a hit on streaming ahead of a new prequel. The Conjuring: Last Rites became the biggest movie in the Conjuring franchise, earning a box office haul of $494.5 million worldwide. Now it’s proving to be a hit for HBO Max as the film has rocketed to #1 on the streamer’s top 10 movies chart.
The Conjuring: Last Rites’ box office success came despite divided opinions about the movie. The film was billed as the final installment of The Conjuring series, but HBO Max now has a Conjuring prequel film in development, inspired by flashback scenes of young Ed and Lorraine in Last Rites.
The Conjuring: Last Rites’ franchise-high box office came after a record-breaking opening weekend. The film stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the real-life husband-and-wife supernatural investigators who inspired the series.
James Wan directed the original The Conjuring film and has overseen the property’s expansion into a full-fledged franchise via spinoff movies The Nun, Annabelle, and The Curse of La Llorona​​​​. Wan will soon bring that experience to bear in an attempt to revive another horror franchise pronounced dead just a few years ago.
What’s Next for The Conjuring Franchise?
Image via Warner Bros. / Courtesy Everett Collection
Little is known about The Conjuring prequel movie at this point. Rodrigue Huart​​​​​​, a director of short films, is reportedly in talks to direct the feature. Richard Naing and Ian Goldberg, who have written three films in the franchise to date, including The Conjuring: Last Rites​​​​​​, are developing the script. Wan reportedly will not be involved in the prequel due to disagreements about pay. Whether Wilson and Farmiga will appear in any capacity, given the project’s nature as a prequel, is unclear.
The Conjuring story will also continue in an upcoming HBO television series. Details on that project are also scarce, but Nancy Won, a veteran of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Supernatural, and Jericho, was hired to serve as the show’s writer, executive producer, and showrunner.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is the third direct sequel to the original 2013 The Conjuring. The film is inspired by one of the Warrens’ real-life cases, known as the Smurl haunting. In the movie, Ed and Lorraine head to Pennsylvania to help a troubled family. In the process, they encounter a demon connected to one of their previous investigations that continues to haunt Lorraine years later.
Michael Chaves directed The Conjuring: Last Rites from a screenplay written by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. Wan also contributed to the story. Wilson and Farmiga reprise their roles as Ed and Lorraine Warren for the film, with Orion Smith and Madison Lawlor taking on the roles in flashback scenes. Mia Tomlinson plays Ed and Lorraine’s daughter, Judy Warren, with Emmy Nolan playing the role in flashbacks. Ben Hardy plays Judy’s boyfriend, Tom Spera.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is streaming on HBO Max now. The previous three Conjuring movies (The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It) are also streaming on HBO Max, as are the Annabelle trilogy, both The Nun movies, and The Curse of La Llorona.
Release Date
September 5, 2025
Runtime
135 Minutes
Director
Michael Chaves