It managed to pull off something in particular that we've seen countless other films fail spectacularly at.
Released on 19 July 2013, The Conjuring probably shouldn't have worked as well as it did.
Coming from the director of Saw and Insidious, both of which eventually devolved into a series of ever-worsening sequels, and based on a true story of a haunted family, there was nothing here that we hadn't seen before.
However, unlike the countless other horror films in the last almost two decades, The Conjuring had some money put behind. Some real money, its $20 million budget staggering against Insidious' $1.5 million, Saw's $1.2 million, or even Sinister's $3 million.
More money made the film feel more legitimate - the cheapness of the competitors really does shine through on repeat viewings, but The Conjuring already feels sort of timeless, capable of standing alongside the other horrors that producers put some real bank behind, like The Shining, or The Omen, or The Haunting.
It paid off, making $319.5 million at the worldwide box office, which brings us to what The Conjuring has managed to pull off that many other movies couldn't: it set up a universe.
Three years later, we got The Conjuring 2, but before then we got the first spin-off, focussing on the creepy doll from The Conjuring's opening scene. Annabelle was released in 2014, and was another huge hit ($257 million on a $6 million budget), and it too get a sequel, when Annabelle: Creation dropped in 2017, making $306.5 million.
On top of that, there's the upcoming spin-off The Nun (due to drop this September, in the same week we got the monster horror hit IT last year), while there is also a third Annabelle movie inbound (due in 2019), a third Conjuring movie, and a third spin-off, The Crooked Man, based on one of the bigger scares from The Conjuring 2.
Clip via Movieclips
Every single movie that has been released based on that first Conjuring movie has been a massive hit, and what Warner Brothers have effectively done is created a successful movie universe, a CCU - Conjuring Cinematic Universe.
Now, think about it: Marvel have done it well, but the DCU has been met with problems almost from the get-go, while Sony attempted to do something similar off the back of The Amazing Spider-Man, only for it to fail spectacularly, and now they're attempting to do it again with the upcoming Venom and other villainous outings.
Universal tried to do the same with The Mummy being the first of their old-school monster movies, but when Cruise's action-horror flopped hard, the whole thing was ditched.
There's more to come - Warners are trying again with a future Godzilla and King Kong crossover - but without even really trying, The Conjuring has shown them all how it's done. And if they can keep up the same level of quality, then long may it continue!
Clip via Warner Bros. Pictures
