Though The Conjuring Universe will continue, September's The Conjuring: Last Rites is being marketed as the final instalment in the main series of movies that began back in 2013 with James Wan's original supernatural shocker.
This time, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) will come out of retirement to investigate the infamous Smurl family haunting.
"It is one of the more Googleable ones," producer Peter Safran tells EW. "It really fit the bill for us, being able to lean into something that audiences could go and Google after the movie. 'Oh! They really did have that many children.' 'Oh! They really were this age, and the grandparents really were there.' All of that stuff has always been meaningful to us."
"It's the end of the story with Patrick and Vera as Ed and Lorraine," he adds. "It doesn't rule out opportunities to do things down the line, but without really knowing exactly what I could say, I feel like The Conjuring is still a great playground."
Check out the first trailer and poster below.
Before it was decided to focus on the Smurl case for this final film, some pretty out-there ideas were tossed around.
"Even as we were developing it, we were throwing a bunch of ideas out: 'How shamelessly big can we make it?' 'How epic can we make it?' 'Is this the culmination of all the demons coming to face them?" says director Michael Chaves.
The filmmaker reveals that the team briefly entertained the idea of "about a dozen Doctor Strange portals opening to reveal every Conjuring entity assembled together for an endgame of sorts."
"I felt strongly that the biggest, most emotional story we could tell was the most personal story."
"The beating heart of this franchise is Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson playing Ed and Lorraine," adds James Wan. "The family dynamic, the faith the characters have, and the faith that they have in each other are really the things that drive this particular franchise. I do think that's what people love about it. At least for me and Peter Safran, it's really about finding a way to tell the stories of these characters and to wrap them up in a way that feels respectful to where we started with them."