The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been an unmitigated success story in cinema, bringing the branching continuity of comic books to the big screen. While it's certainly been a boon for Disney's bottom line, many of its imitators have so far failed to create anything as lasting. Universal's Dark Universe continually failed right out of the gate, while Warner Bros.' attempts to build a universe out of Godzilla and DC superheroes have had their own middling results.
One Warner Bros. film franchise that has so proved up to the challenge, though, is the universe of The Conjuring. Beginning back in 2013, these films have branched off into an entire cinematic world detailing the real-life investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Though their audience reception is a bit more inconsistent than Disney/Marvel films, they continue to be a financial powerhouse in a much less mainstream audience. Many Marvel wannabes fail by fast-tracking a crossover like The Avengers, but The Conjuring Universe takes the opposite approach in spinning off from the main films.
James Wan's The Conjuring released in 2013 and was seen as a boon for the then moribund horror film genre. Introducing audiences to real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the plot of the film has the duo investigating the supernatural happenings on a farm in Rhode Island. Combining strong storytelling with old-school horror ideas, The Conjuring was a godsend compared to contemporaries that were filled to the brim with jump scares and lame tropes. The movie's financial and critical success was followed up with the spinoff Annabelle, which showcased how the Warrens' first encountered the demonic doll seen in the first movie.
Sequels to both The Conjuring and Annabelle came in the following years, building off of the success of their predecessors, with other spinoffs including The Nun and The Curse of La Llorona. While the former was a prequel involving a demonic entity introduced in The Conjuring 2, La Llorona is perhaps the universe's most standalone film yet. Initially reported to not even be in The Conjuring Universe, the film was ultimately tied to the stories through the presence of Father Perez from the first Annabelle, as well as a cameo appearance from the demonic doll herself. Annabelle would go on to appear in what was possibly the final part of a trilogy in Annabelle Comes Home, which was the spinoff most connected to the main series and even prominently featured the Warrens.
The biggest reason for The Conjuring Universe's shared success alongside the MCU is the fact that it is so blatantly not trying to be Marvel Studios' franchise. While talk of sequels admittedly came down from the higher-ups after the first film's success, the initial intention was obviously never to build a huge, sprawling universe of horror movies and concepts. Likewise, the universe itself isn't very sprawling at all, and despite its supernatural premise is relatively mundane compared to the interdimensional, cosmic concepts of the MCU.
The MCU, so far at least, has been constantly building up to a gigantic, pivotal crossover event between all of its movie franchises. The Conjuring Universe, on the other hand, has no such crossover that it's building up to, allowing its films to be much more self-contained and independent. Conversely, individual marquees such as Annabelle are built up after being introduced in the mainline movies, which is also the opposite of the MCU.
Though many of them have released within a year of each other, the films in The Conjuring Universe don't feel as if they come out nearly as often as Marvel's offering. This, when combined with their more standalone nature, make the films feel less like retreads of themselves or that the franchise is being oversaturated. This is actually an incredible feat, given the films' existence as solely horror movies, whereas Marvel's offerings, while all ostensibly superhero flicks, have different subgenres. More films are on their way, including a third entry in the mainline Conjuring films, and it will be interesting to see how the franchise continues to expand in an organic and successful way. So far, at least, they've been the only ones besides Marvel to do so without any major missteps.