‘The Conjuring 2’s Original Valak Character Design Never Wore Nun Robes
Image via Warner Bros. Studio
Valak, the face of The Conjuring 2 and many Halloween costumes, wasn’t supposed to look like a sister of the church.
Fans had the unholy awakening after James Wan, creator of the Conjuring Universe, shared the original character designs for the demon. The filmmaker revealed that Valak was intended to take on a Maleficent-esque appearance with menacing red eyes and large black horns and wings.
The concept was modeled after a “Dracula design for a movie I was attached to a long time ago called Castlevania,” Wan noted on Instagram.
In fact, producers were so invested in this concept, it was propelled way into the filming process. There was even an “awesome animatronic suit” of Dracula Valak already made.
So, what changed? Wan realized that the “beautifully designed/sculpted horned demon” looked too unrelatable and “too out of left-field.”
“It needed to be more grounded and personal,” he continued. “Something that would take [paranormal investigator] Lorraine [Warren]’s faith and try to test/corrupt it.”
He later recalled how the real Lorraine Warren had expressed her admiration “for her nun friends, and a lightbulb went off.”
“So we went back and replaced all the Horned Demon with the Nun during additional photography,” the filmmaker explained.
The next film of the franchise, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, is scheduled for release on 4 June 2021. At present, there’s little revealed about the movie, but Wan recently teased that it will deviate from the usual “haunted house setup” and portray “something we’ve never explored before in the Conjuring world.”
[via Digital Spy, cover image via Warner Bros. Studio]
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