There are still several decades of story between The Nun 2 and Valak’s appearance in The Conjuring, so what are the plans for The Nun 3?

Valak is back and haunting the Conjurverse, and there’s already speculation on whether the demon’s most terrifying form will appear again in The Nun 3. The Nun is a spinoff of James Wan’s The Conjuring, the horror franchise focusing on Ed and Lorraine Warren. However, The Nun takes place several decades before The Conjuring, set in Europe in the 1950s. Much like sister-spinoff Annabelle, The Nun movies focus on a specific entity encountered by the Warrens — Valak, the titular Nun. The sequel to 2018’s The Nun arrived in 2023, and while The Nun 2 set up the upcoming The Conjuring: Last Rites, there’s already demand for The Nun series of Conjuring spinoffs to become a trilogy.

In The Nun 2, Valak possessed Maurice, a character present in several Conjuring movies including The Nun. However, by the end of the movie Sister Irene had managed to save Maurice and banish Valak back to hell. Maurice is apparently cured, however, a fleeting look from Sister Irene shows she’s far from convinced Valak’s gone for good. Since the Nun finds her way to the Warren’s by the time of The Conjuring, it’s clear that Sister Irene’s worries are well-founded — meaning there’s definitely a narrative reason to continue the franchise with The Nun 3.

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The Latest The Nun 3 News

There hasn’t yet been any news on The Nun 3, and it’s never been touted as part of James Wan’s plans for upcoming movies in The Conjuring universe. However, The Nun 2 Director Michael Chavez spoke to SFX Magazine in August 2023 (via GamesRadar). From his perspective, there’s definitely scope to expand the story further with The Nun 3 — “There’s a line in [The Nun 2]: ‘Demons are infinite.’ I like the idea that she’s always been here in different forms. I think that there’s still more stories of Valak the demon nun to be told.”

When asked what kind of stories could happen in The Nun 3 and how they’d fit into the wider universe of The Conjuring, Chavez explained “Anyone who saw the first Conjuring knows that Maurice is possessed and then exorcised by the Warrens, and we know that that happens in the late ’60s in the Conjuring timeline.” He then added “[The Nun 2] is set in the ’50s so we’re still a ways off from that. The events of what happens in between this starts to fill out that story a little bit more.”

The Nun 3 Isn’t Confirmed

The Nun 2 has been a relative box-office success for New Line Studios, netting $05.3 million globally on its opening weekend, making it the second-highest opening movie for The Conjuring franchise. There’s clearly still an audience appetite for the spinoff franchise, but The Nun 3 isn’t confirmed, and there’s nothing to suggest that there are any plans for it to enter development soon.

The Nun 3 Release Date Prediction

Even if The Nun 3 was to be confirmed soon, it would still likely be a long wait. The Nun was released in 2018, and it wasn’t until 2023, 5 years later, that The Nun 2 arrived. There’s not been confirmation yet that The Nun 3 is happening, but it’s realistic to expect it in 2026 at the absolute earliest if it does, and even this is optimistic.

The Nun 3 Cast

Until it’s confirmed it’s impossible to accurately predict the cast of The Nun 3. The Conjuring spinoff franchise focuses on Valak, a Demon, who could appear again at any point in history. This means the only guaranteed cast member is Bonnie Adams as Valak in the form of the Nun, a role she has played for every one of Valak’s appearances since the first The Conjuring movie.

There’s always an outlying chance that The Nun 3 features an entirely new roster of human characters as many horror sequels across other franchises have in the past. However, if it’s to follow on directly from the ending of The Nun 2, there are some cast members likely to appear in The Nun 3. These are:

If The Nun 3 decides to round off the trilogy by showing in full how Valak was exorcized from Frenchie once and for all, it’s almost guaranteed that Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga Will reprise their roles as Ed and Lorraine Warren. There’ll also likely be several new characters added to the cast if the third The Nun movie gets confirmed.

The Nun 3 Story Details

There’s no word on what the story of The Nun 3 will be if it’s confirmed. The post-credits scene of The Nun 2 brought back Ed and Lorraine Warren, but this is widely thought to be a set-up of The Conjuring 4 (titled The Conjuring: Last Rites) than it is The Nun 3.

Comments from director Michael Chavez point out that there’s still several years unaccounted for when it comes to the Nun and Frenchie in the Conjuring timeline. The Nun 3 could show Valak returning to Maurice once again, ending once more before he met the Warrens. Or the third movie in the franchise could bring the Warren’s into the franchise spinoff fully, finally showing their first encounter with Valak and the Nun.