‘The Nun’ Release Date Pushed Back to September

In hopes of cashing in on the massive success of last year’s IT, Warner Bros. is pushing back The Nun, the latest film in the shared universe of The Conjuring films, to September 7. The film was previously slated to hit theaters on July 13.

The specific details about the film have been kept under wraps, but we know that the demonic entity first appeared in The Conjuring 2 before making a brief appearance in last summer’s Annabelle: Creation. We also know the storyline follows a priest that is dispatched to investigate the mysterious death of a nun in Rome. The priest will be played by Alien: Covenant‘s Demián Bichir and the demonic nun will once again by played by Bonnie Aarons. The film also stars Taissa Farmiga, younger sister of The Conjuring‘s Vera Farmiga, as a fellow nun. Charlotte Hope is slated to play the character Sister Victoria, a nun who is plagued by a demonic presence.

With IT having gone on to score more than $700 million worldwide, Warner Bros. won’t be expecting this film to shatter box office records, yet they clearly found success in the lead-up to Halloween. The Nun currently has no competition in its new opening weekend, whereas it was previously going up against Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper and Hotel Transylvania 3.

The upcoming film will be the fifth installment in the shared universe following The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation. The R-rated films have amassed more than $1 billion worldwide, with a sixth film planned for 2019. That film, The Crooked Man, will be another spinoff from The Conjuring 2.

While each film in the franchise focuses on different paranormal entities plaguing individuals, the new film is said to offer a slightly different approach.

“When [The Conjuring director] James [Wan] and I sat down, and we talked story, we wanted [it] to be a little bit more of a mission-based movie,” screenwriter Gary Dauberman revealed to Entertainment Weekly. “We wanted to give a little bit of an action-adventure flavor to it, rather than just someone moving into a house and something creepy happens.” He added, “We wanted something very atmospheric, very moody — and setting it in Romania certainly accomplishes that.”

Stay tuned for details about The Nun, hitting theaters on September 7.

[H/T Deadline]