Director Oren Peli recently revealed that James Wan wasn’t the first choice to direct 2013’s The Conjuring. Talking on the Post Mortem podcast, the Paranormal Activity director revealed that he was offered to direct The Conjuring, and also explains why he decided to decline:
“I kind of wanted to just kind of cash out and be done [after Paranormal Activity]. I got sucked into [producing] the Paranormal Activity sequels, then I had lunch with Steven Spielberg and he said, ‘Let’s do a TV show together.’ And we did The River. I kind of kept having different opportunities to get me sucked back in. And then I thought, ‘Yeah, I could find something to direct.’ I got sent a lot of scripts. There was one I really loved called Eliza Graves. It ended up being a whole big legal mess and the project fell through.”
The Conjuring franchise absolutely ended up with the right director, as James Wan has managed turned The Conjuring into its own shared universe, with The Nun, and The Conjuring 3 on the horizon. While it’s sad that Oren Peli is avoiding the director’s chair lately — Paranormal Activity was a defibrillator shock to the horror genre at the time — The Conjuring doesn’t really seem to fall in line with his strengths. The Conjuring is a very traditional ghost story, while Oren Peli seems to favor the found-footage aesthetic. Hopefully he will find a project that inspires him soon, though the director was also quick to say that he is relieved to not have to deal with “the crazy world of directing” anymore.
Presently, there is no release date announced for The Conjuring 3, while The Nun is set for a July 18th 2018 release and The Crooked Man is also in development.
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Originally published November 9, 2017. Updated December 18, 2019.
