Interview (Written): Gary Dauberman

The screenwriter talks about the new horror movie The Nun.

Marvel is not the only franchise with its own cinematic universe. Reaching movie theaters this weekend in North America, The Nun is part of the Conjuring series of films including the Annabelle titles.

IMDb logline: A priest with a haunted past and a novice on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate the death of a young nun in Romania and confront a malevolent force in the form of a demonic nun.

The Nun writing credits: Screenplay by Gary Dauberman, story by James Wan and Gary Dauberman.

In this /film interview, Dauberman, who has also written Annabelle and It, talks about how he approached writing the origin story of the demonic spirit which made its appearance in The Conjuring 2.

The Nun is the origin story of The Nun. In the Annabelle spinoffs it wasn’t until the second one that you did the origin of Annabelle. Was it a different approach to The Nun?

It was a different approach to The Nun. James [Wan] really wanted to tell the origin story right out of the gate with this one and had this ambitious, fantastic idea to set it in Romania, this huge castle and invoke that Hammer horror sort of atmosphere and moodiness. It feels a little bit different from the other Conjuring movies. That was also part of our strategy there.

Does The Nun have more overt connections to the Conjuring movies than the Annabelle spinoffs did? It opens with scenes from The Conjuring 2.

Yeah, it’s sort of the start of the evil that terrorizes Lorraine that we see in Conjuring 2 but we realize she’s been struggling with since even before the first Conjuring. So yeah, this definitely has that direct tie-in as you put it, a little bit more overt than the Annabelle movies.

Did you have carte blance to invent the mythology of The Nun in this movie?

I always hesitate to use the phrase carte blanche. I think we all make a great team. It’s a very collaborative effort. So while I’m free to come up with ideas as much as I want, go as far off the reservation as I want, I do discuss it with James and I discuss with Peter (Safran) and the guys at New Line and the guys at Atomic [Monster] and we all go, “Okay, what’s going to work best here.” So yes, I was given creative license but you don’t want to do anything that’s going to upset the applecart.

What are the rules of her powers? She can throw people across the room. What are the limits if there are any?

We don’t have sort of the rule book of what The Nun can and can’t do. I do think her greatest power is instilling fear in others, this paralyzing fear. She is a demon so I think she has to adhere to the rules of demons and all that entails. We didn’t want to make her a superhero where she has super strength. She has this supernatural power so I think that’s what we leaned into for her.

Here is a trailer for The Nun:

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