SPOILER WARNING: The following article features major spoilers for The Nun II. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
Movie-goers who stay through the first few minutes of the end credits in The Nun II are treated to a fun little present that teases the future of The Conjuring Universe… but it’s notably a pretty vague scene. A shot of a mailbox confirms that fans have been brought back to the home of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and a ringing phone is answered. Whoever is on the other line is having some kind of an emergency, and Ed rushes to the receiver and immediately asks how he can help.
So is this Nun II end credits scene a tease for The Nun 3 or The Conjuring 4, which has been given the title The Conjuring: Last Rites? According to director Michael Chaves, the answer may be both. Speaking with the filmmaker during the new film’s virtual press day late last month, I posed that question, and he offered that the sequence has multiple purposes:
That is a great question. I think that there's an intentional ambiguity there. I think it was really important to just confirm to the audience that we are heading towards that exorcism – the exorcism is something that looms large for fans of this franchise. So it was definitely something that was important to do for that. It also could, in its own way, play as a tease for Last Rites which would be the final installment of the Conjuring franchise – not franchise, but just the main Conjuring series.
When Michael Chaves refers to “that exorcism,” he is referring to the one involving Maurice "Frenchie" Theriault – played by Jonas Bloquet in The Nun and The Nun II. Maurice is a key supporting character in The Nun, and the end of that film links his story to The Conjuring – with Ed and Lorraine hosting a lecture and showing video of their efforts to cast out a demon out of him. He ends up dying during the ritual, but not before leaving a psychic scar on Lorraine.
Knowing that this important exorcism is still on the horizon in the continuity may be a relief to fans who may be a touch confused about The Conjuring Universe timeline after the ending of The Nun II. The Nun and The Conjuring connect easily because the former ends with Maurice being possessed by the demon known as Valak (Bonnie Aarons), but Valak no longer has control of Maurice after the events of The Nun II. There is tragedy ahead that involves the character getting repossessed, and Michael Chaves is in part signaling his awareness of that story with the Nun II mid-credits scene.
What’s not specifically clear from the director’s answer is if this means that we can expect the exorcism of Maurice "Frenchie" Theriault to play out in The Conjuring: Last Rites. That’s certainly a possibility that comes to mind if the developing project is, as Michael Chaves states, set to be the finale of the main series of Conjuring films. It’s possible that the movie will function as a Nun 3 by another name, with the Warrens trying to rid Maurice of his demon as the film also tells the story of how Valak returned to him. The concepts could dovetail nicely.
At the same time, it’s equally possible that The Conjuring: Last Rites will tell a story that takes place after the events of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and we’ll have to wait for the final Maurice story in The Nun 3, co-starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga (fans will remember that the Conjuring stars previously took on supporting roles in Annabelle Comes Home). We currently don’t know much of anything about The Conjuring 4 beyond the fact that it will be written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.
The Nun II just had a strong opening weekend at the box office, so the future certainly seems bright for The Conjuring Universe. Stay tuned for more details about the franchise here on CinemaBlend, and discover all of the scary films that are set to be released in the coming months with our Upcoming Horror Movies guide.
