When The Conjuring came out in 2013, “nobody could have imagined it would have the incredible life that it’s had,” said filmmaker Michael Chaves.

Chaves directed three of the nine films in the Conjuring series, including the latest, The Conjuring: Last Rites , out Sept. 5. Now it’s the most lucrative horror movie franchise in history , worth well over $2 billion , with spin-offs that include The Nun and Annabelle movies.

The heroes of The Conjuring movies are based on a real-life couple: Ed and Lorraine Warren. They were professional ghostbusters with a knack for packaging their experiences into books, TV and movie deals. The Conjuring movies all draw explicitly from the Warren’s real-life cases. (Ed Warren died in 2006, Lorraine Warren died in 2019.)

The Conjuring: La

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