‘Aquaman’ Spinoff ‘The Trench’ Gets Its Inspiration From The ‘Conjuring’ Franchise

With the box office success of “Aquaman,” it goes without saying that a sequel is already in the bag. Yet before audiences worldwide will see “Aquaman 2” hit the theaters sometime in 2022, there is one more film to watch in between, “The Trench.”

The aptly named “Aquaman” spin-off is expected to tell the story about how the monsters of the deep came to be. In the original film, Arthur and Mera had to venture deep inside the trench in search of the trident. However, they had to fight hordes of monsters that inhabit these parts of the deep.

“We always, even from the early concept art days, loved the idea of a Trench movie,” producer Peter Safran told Hollywood Reporter. “Then, when audiences embraced it in the movie itself the way they did, particularly that ant farm shot where the camera follows the Trench [creatures] following Arthur and Mera down into the deep, we just knew that we had something very special there and we knew what that movie should be. And consequently, I suspect that that’s one that will come out significantly before Aquaman 2.”

Fans of “Aquaman” actors Jason Momoa and Amber Heard, who played Arthur and Mera respectively, might be in for a little disappointment. Safran already confirmed that both characters will be missing in the spinoff.

Safran admitted that the idea of the spinoff “The Trench” is influenced by what they also did with “The Conjuring” franchise. There were only two films in the original series — “The Conjuring,” which was released in 2013 and grossed $319.5 million in the box office, followed by “The Conjuring 2” in 2016, which grossed $320.4 million.

Taking various elements from the two original films, the franchise birthed more spinoffs and prequels resulting to the ever-growing list of horror movies collectively known as the Conjuring Universe. At the moment, the series already released 5 films, which include “Annabelle” (Oct. 3, 2014), “Annabelle: Creation” (Aug. 11, 2017) and “The Nun” (Sept. 7, 2018), with a total box office earnings of $1.569 billion.

More movies are on the way, such as a still-untitled “Annabelle” film slated for a June 28, 2019, release; the still underdevelopment “The Conjuring 3” with a scheduled release on Sept. 11, 2020; and a film titled “The Crooked Man,” which is already in development but still without an announced release date.

Meanwhile, the Aquaman Universe has the makings of an even bigger franchise. Its first movie alone already grossed $1.142 billion worldwide. At the moment, Safran did not yet reveal the release date for the spinoff “The Trench” but only hinted that it might come out before “Aquaman 2,” which is expected to release sometime in 2022.