James Wan’s ‘The Conjuring 2’ Hits Big At Box Office, But Can He Succeed With ‘Aquaman’?

James Wan is a box office juggernaut.

The director of the hottest movie over the weekend, The Conjuring 2, continues to deliver smash franchise after smash franchise, a trend that began all the way back when he unleashed the original Saw films on an unsuspecting public back in 2004. That film, starring Cary Elwes and Tobin Bell, ended up spawning seven sequels and a hit franchise before bowing out with the final film in 2010.

As reported by Variety, The Conjuring 2 is scaring up box office receipts like crazy over the weekend.

“New Line’s The Conjuring 2 is scaring up a solid $39 million at 3,343 sites in its opening weekend at the U.S. box office, handily beating launches by Warcraft and Now You See Me 2, estimates showed Saturday.”

I reviewed #TheConjuring2, in which @creepypuppet outdoes even himself https://t.co/dTiEfjsAeJ

— Brian Truitt (@briantruitt) June 9, 2016

The movie is also a hit with critics and fans alike. Take this review by the L.A. Times that speaks about how Wan is able to deliver fresh new characters and avoid the pitfalls a sequel might face.

“Wan has a gift for investing even the creakiest cliches with shivery élan… there is something about the Warrens’ case files that pushes his filmmaking into the realm of the rhapsodic.”

Ironically enough, Wan told Collider that he almost didn’t make it back for The Conjuring 2, citing fatigue from working on another big-time franchise.

“Working on Fast and Furious 7,” Wan said, “it was such a big, daunting movie, even though it was an incredible experience because I got the opportunity to play on such a huge canvas and I got to do so many crazy, cool things.”

But luckily for the filmmaker, fans, and the studio, Wan found The Conjuring to be the perfect antidote to the splash heavy, big-budget franchise that was Fast and The Furious.

“Ultimately I felt that for my next movie I just wanted to go and do something smaller and something more personal and Conjuring 1 was such an intimate movie for me and it just kind of made sense for me to come back for number two.”

“[Warner Bros.] asked me which of the two characters I’d be interested in and it was between The Flash and Aquaman,” Wan said in an interview before revealing why he chose one over the other.

“The thing that ultimately pushed me more towards Aquaman is I love the possibility of creating a whole new world. I’ve always wanted to do a world creation story and visually create this amazing, incredible, magical kingdom. And also, I love the fact that Aquaman is an underdog character. I love the fact that people like to make fun of him.”

But since that decision was made, a lot has happened to the DC movie universe. Batman V Superman, the linchpin film that was to kick off the triumphant inter-connected story world akin to the Marvel Studios films, disappointed fans and critics alike. It created a ripple effect that found Geoff Johns and Ben Affleck assuming larger roles within the studio, as reported by Inquisitr.

It also saw Flash director Seth Grahame-Smith quit the film over “creative differences,” though rumors were Warner Bros. had concerns about a first-time director at the helm of such an important puzzle piece in the world. The shake-ups even led to the rumor that Wan himself was having cold feet about Aquaman.

So, while James Wan is on top of the world at the moment with The Conjuring 2, unless he’s ready to handle the intense scrutiny surrounding the DC movie universe at the moment, he may be crashing down to the depths when tries to tackle Aquaman. Though as he put it best, when it comes to Aquaman, “the bar is a lot lower.”

[Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Dodge]