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“The Conjuring” franchise is officially over (at least for now). After 12 years and nine movies, the story of horror’s greatest couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren is done. Their love story has long been the open secret sauce of “The Conjuring” franchise<\/a>, the key to its success lying in the undeniable chemistry between Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. But all good stories must come to an end, so in a rare move for a horror franchise, we actually get a definitive conclusion to the Warren’s story in “The Conjuring: Last Rites.”<\/p>\n The fourth “Conjuring” movie tells the story of the Smurl haunting case, with Ed and Lorraine having to vanquish a demon from a Pennsylvania family’s home when it starts threatening their own family. It’s a hectic, unsurprisingly scary, but surprisingly sweet note to end the story on<\/a>. But given how successful the franchise has been, it is surprising that it’s ending at all \u2014 unless you ask the movie’s director.<\/p>\n As director Michael Chaves explained in an exclusive interview with \/Film’s Jacob Hall, the conversations about ending the Warren’s story with “Last Rites” started at the very start of the development process for the film. Chaves cites “Nightmare on Elm Street” as another great horror franchise, but one that never got a proper end, with the studio simply not producing more movies after a while.<\/p>\n “I think that New Line and really Dave Neustadter, who is one of the key core creative executives at the studio, had said, ‘You know, let’s end this movie while we’re strong. Let’s end it on our own terms,'” Chaves said. “And that was kind of basically our kind of guiding marching orders going through the whole movie.”<\/p>\n More specifically, there was one Marvel movie that inspired the rather definitive ending to “Last Rites” \u2014 “Logan.”<\/p>\n