'The Conjuring 3' Will Be A Departure From The First Two Films, According To Patrick Wilson

The Conjuring universe has been growing quite a bit in the past few years. Not only has the spin-off Annabelle sparked a franchise on its own, but The Nun became quite the success earlier this year, and The Crooked Man spin-off is still on the way. But with Annabelle 3 bringing Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) into the fray in a much more prominent way, what does the future of The Conjuring franchise look like?

Patrick Wilson has been making the publicity rounds for this month's release of Aquaman, and a recent interview eventually turned to The Conjuring franchise. While the actor couldn't reveal much about the sequel, what he did say certainly makes us curious about what will happen.

In an interview with Digital Spy, the brief conversation about The Conjuring universe had Wilson say this:

"We just finished Annabelle 3 which is cool. It's nice to dip our toes into that franchise a little bit. Conjuring 3 will be different than anything we've seen, which is fun."

While Patrick Wilson doesn't reveal anything specific, this does give us an idea of what not to expect in The Conjuring 3. Since the first two films have dealt with a family traumatized by demons in their house, it's likely that we won't be treading that territory this time. So what will be happening in The Conjuring 3?

Bloody Disgusting notes that they've heard the story concerns a man on trial for a murder, but he claims that he was possessed by a demon and didn't willingly commit the murder. Could we be looking at a story that unfolds in a courtroom? Or will that merely be the bookends of the story and the rest will play out in flashbacks? We haven't seen a ghost story meet the courtroom since The Exorcism of Emily Rose, so that could be something fun to play with.

The big question is whether the events of Annabelle 3 will have any major impact on The Conjuring 3 or not. After all, the spin-off sequel focuses on Ed and Lorraine's daughter Judy (McKenna Grace of Gifted) as she and her babysitter (Madison Iseman of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) have to deal with the evil doll. Though Annabelle was believed to be dormant in the relics room of the Warrens, apparently she awakes and "awakens the room's evil."

I don't know about you, but that sounds to me like it could be setting up something bigger in The Conjuring universe. Maybe Annabelle will release another kind of evil, and that's what ends up being at the center of The Conjuring 3. It would be interesting to see The Conjuring universe become even more interconnected like that in the same way that the Marvel Cinematic Universe films have started to wave together more definitively than tangentially.

Of course, this is all speculation. What we know for sure is that The Conjuring 3 will be directed by Michael Chaves, and it's slated to be released on September 11, 2020. Annabelle 3 arrives before that on July 3, 2019. Stay tuned to find out anything else we learn about the sequel as time goes on.