Director James Wan Will Return To Horror With His Next Film
At last, director James Wan is returning to the horror genre. While Wan has produced plenty of horror in recent years, he hasn't helmed a scary movie since 2016's The Conjuring 2. Since then, his focus has been on helming blockbusters like Furious 7 and Aquaman. Wan still has blockbusters in his future, like Aquaman 2. But before he directs that superhero sequel, he's going to direct a new horror film – and that's exciting.
Multiple outlets are reporting that James Wan's next directorial effort will be a return to horror. THR says the project will shoot this fall, with Variety adding that Wan will then move on to production on Aquaman 2 in 2020. Sadly, there are next to zero details about what the horror project is. All we know for now is that the story for the film was thought-up by Wan and Ingrid Bisu, a writer and actress who appeared in the Wan-produced Conjuring spin-off The Nun. THR adds that the film will feature a "slice of horror Wan hasn't yet explored" – which rules out ghosts and serial killers, two things Wan has made plenty of movies about.
Wan burst onto the scene with the surprise 2004 indie horror hit Saw. Saw launched an entire horror franchise with other directors, while Wan moved on to other genre pictures. His first Saw follow-up was the vastly underrated spooky puppet movie Dead Silence, released in 2007. That same year he also released the revenge flick Death Sentence. In 2010, Wan tackled the haunted house genre with Insidious and took that genre a step further in 2013 with The Conjuring. While he returned to helm Insidious: Chapter 2 that same year, it was The Conjuring that ultimately proved to be the biggest goldmine for the filmmaker. Not only did it spawn the Wan-directed The Conjuring 2 in 2016, it also launched an entire franchise of Conjuring Universe films with Wan in the producer's chair.
Wan hasn't directed a horror film since Conjuring 2 but has been teasing his return to horror filmmaking for some time now. When asked by /Film in 2018 if he would ever come back to the genre that gave him his start, Wan replied:
"I will. That's a promise. I will get back to it at some point. I mean, even Sam Raimi did right? After Spider-Man he went back, and did [Drag Me To Hell]. That was so much fun. So, yeah, but I gotta find the right project, because I think when I go back to horror, that'll be quite a spotlight on it, so I just wanna make sure that it's something I really dig."
As a fan of Wan's work, I'm excited by this news. Hopefully, we'll learn more about what this new horror project is soon.