The Curse of La Llorona‘s place in The Conjuring cinematic universe has been debated ever since the horror movie was released in 2019. On the one hand, the film featured a cameo by The Conjuring movie villain Annabelle, and was produced by Atomic Monster (James Wan’s production company which also produced The Conjuring movies).
But on the other hand, The Safran Company, another production company associated with The Conjuring franchise, was not involved. It was also noted that the monster movie focussed less on the typical Conjuring villains and instead was rooted more in Mexican folklore. Now, The Curse of La Llorona’s director has spoken out along with Peter Safran of The Safran Company to set things straight, once and for all.
“There’s so much debate about it and I think I’ve played coy in the past,” director Michael Chaves said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “The idea was that [the Annabelle cameo] was going to be this little hidden thing that you were going to discover as you watch the movie. One of the reasons that it couldn’t formally be a part of the Conjuring universe is it didn’t include one of the key producers, which is Peter Safran. The Conjuring is his baby, him and James, and they are still the two core producers on it.”
He continued, “Peter still gave his permission to let the character be in there. The funny thing is that it was supposed to be a secret, it was supposed to be this Easter Egg, and [when the film premiered at] SXSW, there was a slip-up. The presenter introduced the movie as the next entry in the Conjuring universe. So that was a big kind of faux pas. It was a big mess-up, and that’s the truth of how that all came together.”
Safran affirmed in the same interview that The Curse of La Llorona is “not part of The Conjuring universe.” He added, “You can’t count it! It periodically gets lumped in because of Chaves and because of Atomic Monster, but it is not officially part of the universe. By the way, I think Chaves did a great job on the movie, which is why we stole him for the Conjuring universe.”
For more on The Conjuring universe, check out our guides on how to watch The Conjuring movies in order, The Conjuring 4 release date, The Conjuring TV series release date, and The Nun 2 release date. Or, keep things spooky with our guides to the best horror series, best Netflix horror movies, best slasher movies, best ghost movies, best body horror movies, and everything new on Shudder.
Alternatively, if you’re tired of hearing things going bump in the night, stick to our lists detailing the best movies of all time and all the new movies coming your way this year.