How the Doll Was Born: Annabelle: Creation

Annabelle: Creation (2017) is a supernatural horror film directed by David F. Sandberg, written by Gary Dauberman and produced by Peter Safran and James Wan. It is a prequel to Annabelle (2014) and the fourth film in the Conjuring Universe. It shows how the Annabelle doll came to be. A dollmaker and his wife, still grieving their young daughter, take in a nun and six orphaned girls. One of the girls finds the doll locked in the dead child’s closet. Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto star. Critics saw it as a clear improvement on the first Annabelle. Made for $15 million, it grossed $307 million worldwide and pushed the Conjuring franchise past $1 billion.

At a glance

Release date	June 19, 2017 (LA Film Festival); August 11, 2017 (US)
Director	David F. Sandberg
Writer	Gary Dauberman
Based on	Characters from The Conjuring universe; the Annabelle doll
Starring	Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia, Miranda Otto
Runtime	110 minutes
Rating	R (US), for horror violence and terror
Budget	$15 million
Box office	$307 million
Franchise	The Conjuring Universe: prequel to Annabelle (2014); followed by Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Plot summary

Dollmaker Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) lose their seven-year-old daughter Annabelle, nicknamed “Bee,” in a road accident. Twelve years later, they open their California farmhouse to Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and six girls left homeless when their orphanage closes. The girls are told to stay out of Bee’s locked bedroom.

Janice (Talitha Bateman), an orphan disabled by polio, finds a note reading “Find me” and slips into the room, which has mysteriously come unlocked. In Bee’s closet she finds a porcelain doll, and in doing so she releases a demon that begins tormenting the girls. When she tries to flee on a stairlift, the demon hurls her to the ground floor, and she is left using a wheelchair. Her best friend Linda (Lulu Wilson) realizes something is badly wrong with Janice, and tells Samuel what Janice found.

Spoiler section: the ending

The demon possesses Janice, who kills Samuel. Esther, kept disfigured in her bedroom, explains that after Bee’s death the couple prayed to anything that would let them see her again. A presence they believed was Bee asked to move into one of Samuel’s dolls. It was a demon looking for a human host, and it took Esther’s eye. Priests blessed the house, and the doll was sealed in the closet. The demon then kills Esther. Sister Charlotte locks Janice and the doll in the closet, and police later take the doll away. But Janice escapes, ends up at a Santa Monica orphanage calling herself “Annabelle,” and is adopted by the Higgins family. Twelve years later, after getting involved in devil worship, she murders them, which leads straight into the opening of the 2014 film.

Production and behind the scenes

An Annabelle follow-up was confirmed in October 2015 and later became a prequel. In March 2016, Sandberg replaced the first film’s director, John R. Leonetti. Wan and New Line had approached him during post-production on Lights Out, which Wan’s Atomic Monster produced. Sandberg said he didn’t want to make another formulaic sequel. He agreed because the script went in a different direction, stood on its own and was a period piece. Dauberman returned to write. Bateman, Otto and Sigman were cast in June 2016. Wan had previously considered Bateman for The Conjuring 2.

Filming ran from June 27 to August 15, 2016, at Warner Bros.’ Burbank lot. The production received $2.4 million in California tax credits after spending $17.4 million in the state. Sandberg used Steadicam and tracking shots to keep the “old school” feel of the first two Conjuring films. He said he doesn’t believe in ghosts or demons. Sigman was “a little bit freaked out by that doll” and asked for the set to be blessed by a priest, as The Conjuring 2‘s had been. Benjamin Wallfisch composed the score.

Release and reception

Originally set for May 19, 2017, the film moved to August 11 to avoid Alien: Covenant. It premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 19. It earned $4 million in Thursday previews, a series high at the time and nearly double the first Annabelle‘s, and opened to $35 million. It grossed $102 million in the US and Canada and $307 million worldwide. Deadline calculated a net profit of $108.7 million. The release took the Conjuring franchise past $1 billion, making it only the third horror series to cross that mark, after Alien and Resident Evil.

It holds 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus says it “adds another strong chapter” and offers “further proof that freaky-looking dolls remain reliably terrifying.” Metacritic gave it 62, and CinemaScore audiences gave it a “B,” the same as the first film. Justin Lowe of The Hollywood Reporter called it “wickedly terrifying,” and closer to the original Conjuring‘s old-school frights “than either The Conjuring 2 or Annabelle.”

Legacy and influence

Creation reframed the doll’s history. The doll’s backstory is now a grieving family’s bargain with a demon, and the real “Annabelle” is the possessed orphan Janice, whose story connects directly to the opening of the 2014 film. Its success kept the spin-off series going. In April 2018, Warner Bros. announced a third Annabelle film, with Dauberman writing and making his directing debut. That became Annabelle Comes Home (2019), which returns the doll to Ed and Lorraine Warren, the paranormal investigators of The Conjuring. A brief, uncredited appearance by Valak, the demon nun from The Conjuring 2, also tied it to the wider universe.

Trivia

Bonnie Aarons makes an uncredited appearance as the demon nun Valak, and Annabelle Wallis and Ward Horton appear in archive footage as Mia and John Form.
Child actor Samara Lee was named after Samara Morgan from The Ring.
The young cast had all seen The Exorcist. Sandberg said the main challenge of working with them was the limit on children’s set hours.
A “My Annabelle Creation” short-film contest picked winners from the US, UK, Mexico, Sweden and Colombia.
Its second-weekend drop (55.7%) was smaller than the first Annabelle‘s (57%).