The Conjuring spin-off The Nun 2 is finally happening, and it must pay off the original film's strangest casting choice. The first Conjuring proved beyond doubt that director James Wan was a modern master of horror. It also spawned the most profitable horror film franchise in history.
The Conjuring movies soon paved the way for multiple spin-offs, including the Annabelle series. To date, The Conjurverse has grossed nearly $2 billion combined. The second Conjuring also introduced the series' most iconic monster in the form of Valak, AKA the demon nun. Bonnie Aarons played the creature, who was a last-minute addition to the sequel. As originally filmed, Valak was supposed to be a much more demonic-looking being, but when Wan decided it didn't suit the film, he re-shot those scenes with the nun instead.
Valak proved such a captivating foe that she got her very own spin-off with 2018's The Nun. Set in Romania in 1952, the story saw Taissa Farmiga's Sister Irene confronting the demonic entity at an isolated convent. The Nun received mixed to poor reviews, and outside of some well-staged jolts, it's one of The Conjurverse's weakest entries. That said, it was also the most successful, earning over $360 million worldwide. The Nun 2 is set to arrive in late 2023 and will take place in 1956 where Irene will again have to face off with Valak. Considering Farmiga's return, The Nun 2 can finally address whether her character is supposed to be related to Vera Farmiga's Lorraine Warren from the main Conjuring series.
Is Sister Irene Really A Young Lorraine Warren?
Taissa Farmiga is the real-life sister of Vera, and there's an age gap of 21 years between them. Considering The Nun was set around 20 years before the events of the original Conjuring, and the two characters bare resemblance to each other, many expected The Nun to have some kind of twist. Maybe the biggest twist of all in relation to Sister Irene was that she had no relation to the Warrens at all. Despite Irene and Lorraine both sharing a strong faith in God and having supernatural visions, The Nun didn't even hint at a connection between them.
What has been revealed about Lorraine's backstory doesn't line up neatly with Irene either; there's also the question of why Lorraine doesn't seem to recall Valek. Again, having two real sisters play very similar characters felt like an odd choice, so The Nun 2 could finally pay this off. Even if Irene isn't revealed to be a young Lorraine, maybe the two are meant to be siblings or even cousins. While Taissa Farmiga wasn't exactly stranger to the horror genre - having appeared in American Horror Story and The Final Girls before The Nun - it's doubtful the producers behind the saga didn't take the fact she bore a striking resemblance to her older sibling into consideration during casting. The Nun 2 - which needs to avoid the first movie's mistakes - needs to address this in some fashion, because otherwise, it will feel like a twist that was just abandoned.