{"id":19432,"date":"2023-09-07T03:00:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T01:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=19432"},"modified":"2023-09-07T03:03:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T01:03:30","slug":"the-conjuring-10th-anniversary-a-conversation-with-peter-safran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2023\/09\/07\/the-conjuring-10th-anniversary-a-conversation-with-peter-safran\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conjuring 10th Anniversary \u2013 A Conversation With Peter Safran"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Question:<\/strong> Ten years after the release of \u201cThe Conjuring,<\/a>\u201d this incredibly popular Universe of films has surpassed $2 billion. Let\u2019s go back to the beginning\u2014what drew you to the world of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren\u2019s cases?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Safran:<\/strong> I\u2019ve always loved real world stories\u2014those true scary stories\u2014and I grew up with \u201cThe Exorcist\u201d being the pinnacle of those. When I heard about the Perron family and the Warrens\u2019 investigation, I loved the idea of exploring what a father would do to protect his family. I was a relatively young father at the time and this notion really resonated with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I appreciated that the Perrons had always been consistent about what occurred, and that it was a well-known case of the Warrens\u2019. So, I was drawn to this case because it was based on a true story, for the family reason\u2014a father protecting his daughters\u2014and I had been looking for a supernatural thriller to do for a while. I had grown up loving films like \u201cThe Exorcist,\u201d \u201cThe Omen\u201d and \u201cThe Haunting,\u201d but I had never had the opportunity to produce a film in that genre. I had actively been looking for a story that grabbed me, and the Perron case truly did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I quickly started meeting with writers and identified the Hayes brothers, Chad and Carey, as the guys to do this with us. We worked on a pitch, developed it, took it out to the town\u2026 and every place we pitched it to bid on it. We wound up with our good friends at New Line Cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question:<\/strong> And that began your amazing partnership with James Wan.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Safran:<\/strong> That\u2019s exactly right. A couple of years before \u201cThe Conjuring,\u201d I had made a short film with him where I\u2019d taken directors who are known for horror and given them an opportunity to do a comedy. I\u2019d worked with James on that. He had done one of these; we did it for Xbox. I had long been a fan of his work, but I got to know him while making this short and loved the experience of working with him. Once the Hayes brothers had written a draft of the script and we knew we wanted to make the movie, he was the first and only director that we ever approached about it. We knew that he would be the perfect filmmaker and the perfect partner for it, and a decade later, he\u2019s still exactly both of those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question:<\/strong> The box office for that film was off the charts. Looking back, did you and James have any sense that this film would resonate with audiences that way? Also, what do you think were the elements about that film that clicked and just catapulted it into the stratosphere?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Safran:<\/strong> I think that there are a number of factors that really played into it. We knew from the very first test screening of the movie that we had something special. We knew the script was great, and we knew the story really worked. We knew that true life stories do tend to resonate for the audiences. We knew the performances from our actors were really strong. And at that first test screening, we really saw the audience so fully engaged because\u2026 Look, the movie\u2019s a bit of a throwback. It\u2019s not bloody or gory. People aren\u2019t getting killed. It\u2019s not quick cuts. It\u2019s not just jump scares. It really is a very elegantly crafted story\u2014what James always said is that he wanted to make a family drama wrapped in a supernatural thriller. At its core, it\u2019s a family drama. And I think because the characters worked so well, the audiences were fully engaged with the plight that these people were enduring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we knew from that first test screening that we had something special, but opening weekend, well, it was a crowded weekend. We were opening against a number of other bigger movies, and the tracking suggested we were going to open at $20 [million]. By Friday night, they\u2019re like, \u201cOh my God, this thing could do 23, 24\u2026\u201d By Saturday morning, \u201cYou know what? We could do 26, 27\u2026\u201d Sunday morning, \u201cThis thing could get 29, 30,\u201d which was unheard of. And by Monday morning, we were at $40 million opening weekend. So, we doubled our tracking, and it was just a testament to beautiful filmmaking, a compelling story, and just really beautifully crafted and unique scare sequences, which I think has become a signature of The \u201cConjuring\u201d Universe\u2014creative and clever scare sequences you have not seen elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question:<\/strong> Another amazing partnership is Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Lorraine and Ed Warren\u2014just inspired casting. What was it about the two of them individually and as a pair that felt right to you, to the filmmakers for those roles?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Safran:<\/strong> James [Wan] and Patrick [Wilson] were very close because of \u201cInsidious,\u201d which had come out the year before we shot \u201cThe Conjuring.\u201d James knew him really well. I\u2019d heard the greatest things about Patrick, just that he was a super nice guy, and I always thought he was an incredible actor. He was friends on a personal level with Vera [Farmiga], and obviously everybody respects Vera as an actor. You can\u2019t find somebody that doesn\u2019t love what she does as an actor, and she\u2019s an incredibly good person, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was really Vera and Patrick talking together, like, \u201cDo you want to do this?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll do it if you do it.\u201d That\u2019s where we landed with it. It really was incredible, right from day one, the relationship they have. You feel that Ed and Lorraine have had this incredible, loving relationship in their marriage for a very long time. Patrick and Vera portray that beautifully. There\u2019s something just so sensitive and wonderful to their portrayal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question:<\/strong> That first film also had a prologue that went on to be more important than you could ever have predicted. Tell me about including this reimagined version of one of the Warrens\u2019 now most famous artifacts, who went on to become a star in her own right.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Safran:<\/strong> That was something that James [Wan] brought to the table. When he came on board to direct, it was his idea to put a prologue in with Annabelle. It\u2019s such an eye-catching opening to the movie. You open on an extreme close-up of a glass eyeball, which is incredible, so inspired. Annabelle\u2019s a pretty well-known case, and we thought it was just additional fun for the audience to see something else. But again, from the moment we screened the movie, the audience\u2019s fascination with Annabelle was apparent so quickly.
Right after \u201cThe Conjuring\u201d came out, we all looked at each other and said, \u201cYou know what? Maybe we can do a down-and-dirty, independent style movie about Annabelle?\u201d And New Line were really supportive of it, and we made it for an incredibly low amount of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We shot it in a really quick fashion, and because John Leonetti had worked as a cinematographer for so long with James, he knew all the tricks of the trade. Plus, he\u2019d done a lot of independent stuff, so he could work at the incredibly accelerated pace that we were going to do. It was exciting to be able to go make that movie and then have audiences be so excited about it. It\u2019s really crazy that a movie made for $5 million can make $265 million in the worldwide box office, which is extraordinary. It showed that the appetite for supernatural thrillers done well was alive and kicking. You really have to give James Wan credit for putting in that prologue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question:<\/strong> You mentioned John Leonetti. You also have created this universe of talent with the likes of Gary Dauberman, David Sandberg, Corin Hardy, Michael Chaves, in addition to John. What prompted you and James to grow not just the franchise, but all of that creative talent that you have now put behind the camera?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Safran:<\/strong> We loved the idea of promoting from within, of building a core group of talented individuals who could progress from wherever they started to a place of\u2026 even more authority, more ownership, defined filmmaker style, whatever it is. We just thought that these were really talented people, and that they could go beyond what they\u2019d had the opportunity to do before. Again, we had a great experience with John [Leonetti].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary Dauberman, I think he wrote the \u201cAnnabelle\u201d script in two weeks originally, because we had the idea of just doing it really quickly. He\u2019s gone on to become one of the biggest supernatural\/thriller\/horror movie writers of all time, and a terrific filmmaker in his own right. Don Burgess, who was our cinematographer on \u201cThe Conjuring 2,\u201d his son Mikey Burgess was our cinematographer on \u201cAnnabelle Comes Home.\u201d We really do like to promote from within wherever possible, and we built this great group of people\u2026 and the next generation of that includes Akela Cooper, Richard Naing and Ian Goldberg. David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who wrote \u201cThe Conjuring 2,\u201d wrote \u201cThe Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,\u201d \u201cAquaman\u201d and \u201cAquaman and the Lost Kingdom\u201d\u2014he\u2019s writing the next \u201cConjuring\u201d now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We like to identify these folks early and work with them as much as we can, because they trust us, and we trust them. There\u2019s a real family atmosphere that is fostered around \u201cThe Conjuring.\u201d The same thing goes with [New Line Cinema\u2019s] Richard Brener and with Dave Neustadter, and even the curmudgeonly Craig Alexander [LAUGHS]. We are a family who\u2019ve now been working together for over a decade with great success, and we\u2019ve faced real challenges over the years and have always managed to surmount them together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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