The Warner Bros. Burbank, CA lot has been a ghost town for the last four-and-half-months, with employees working from home in quarantine.
But somebody left Annabelle behind, and the below video shows what happens when the evil doll is left to her own devices, all alone, in the New Line offices.
Back in late July, during a “work equipment pick-up day,” three New Line employees decided to have some fun with this femme movie prop and made this short, Annabelle in Quarantine, about the evil doll’s shenanigans while everyone has been away. The doll has been on fixture at the New Line offices, moving around various work stations during pre-COVID-19 times. Two of the New Line employees shot the movie on their iPhone (yes, in face masks with social distancing), while a third directed remotely by FaceTime.
The short become a hit internally at Warner Bros., making its way into the company newsletter and quickly being spread around to other divisions.
In the wake of the short’s insider buzz, New Line decided to drop it to the public today on its social media channels in recognition of National Doll Day, with Conjuring franchise architect James Wan and David F. Sandberg (director of the series’ highest grossing pic Annabelle: Creation at $306M WW), posting soon.
As you can see below, Annabelle loses her patience back in March by Day 4 of the quarantine, and begins amusing herself around the office. She pops popcorn, takes in Annabelle Comes Home in a screening room, photocopies her body on the Xerox machine, immerses herself in a VR headset, and wolfs down candy with her stuffed animal friends in her hot-pink decorated office, among other activities.
Through six movies, the Conjuring universe has racked up over $1.8 billion WW, making it the highest- grossing horror franchise in history. Of that global box office figure, the three Annabelle movies have made $795M combined WW off a combined production budget of $47M.
A seventh film, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is scheduled to open on June 4, 2021. Annabelle Comes Home is currently on HBOMax.