Malignant Director James Wan Addresses Sequel Status

Fans will have to stay tuned to see if sequel plans emerge.

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Filmmaker James Wan has already delivered audiences films like Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring, all of which kicked off impressive franchises, but fans hoping that his 2021 movie Malignant would similarly kick off a franchise might be disappointed to find out that there's no progress as far as a follow-up film is concerned. While Wan isn't entirely ruling out the notion, he admitted that a story that feels like it needs to be told in that world has yet to come to him, though he did confirm that, having just delivered the massive blockbuster Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, he will likely want to return to his low-budget roots with a new horror movie.

"It's only a matter of time before I feel like, 'You know what, I need to go outside of the box again.' I like to do that," Wan shared with /Film. "I like to kind of go back and forth between my big films and my small films. Now, in terms of Malignant 2, I don't know. I actually don't have an answer for you there."

Wan's Malignant was initially meant to be a theatrical release, though the coronavirus pandemic and the closure of movie theaters meant it was one of the Warner Bros. Discovery films that opened both in theaters and landed on HBO Max on the same day. This had an impact on the film's underwhelming box office, but it did allow more audiences to witness the film from the comfort of their homes, which has helped it earn a cult following.

Luckily, if there's anything that could help a Malignant sequel happen, it would come from fans demanding it.

"That's pretty much what I do from the very start, and not so much thinking that, 'Oh, there'll be a sequel for this,' but I try to, with all my films, I try to have an idea of what the bigger world would look like, the umbrella universe, if you will. That way, when I make this particular film, I know what is happening at every moment of the film, at every moment of the storytelling, if you will," Wan expressed to ComicBook.com back in 2022. "Because I know the bigger world that the story takes place in, there are potentially other stories to tell, and that usually is dictated by what the audience wants. If they want more stories, then I have more stories to pull into it. That's my approach, even all the way back to my first film with Saw, is I do know the bigger world, like [writer] Leigh [Whannell] and I knew the bigger world, and if we were fortunate enough to tell other stories, we have stories ready to tell."

He added, "Same with Insidious, same with The Conjuring. In the case of The Conjuring, it's a more obvious one, right? Because the Warrens, it's based on these real-life people who have investigated many cases, and so that's a more obvious one to pull from. But the same with the Aquaman world, as well. I create this world, and then within that, you can tell many different stories within the universe."

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Stay tuned for updates on the possible future of the Malignant franchise.

Are you hoping we get a sequel to the film? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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