Halloween season is officially underway, thanks to New Line Cinema and James Wan‘s Atomic Monster. Good reviews or not, the Corin Hardy-directed The Nun just smashed the box office earning an estimated $53.5M here in the States and another $77.5M internationally. That’s $131M in its opening weekend, which makes it the biggest box office opening of any of the Conjuring films. With a reported budget of around $22M, this Conjuring spinoff is already massively profitable and destined to become a box office behemoth.

As for James Wan, who produced this spinoff from his The Conjuring, let’s take a second and marvel at what this man has accomplished since directing SAW back in 2004. He is now responsible for a whopping eight franchises (SAW, Insidious, The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Nun, and soon Lights Out, The Crooked Man, and The Nurse). While most directors dream of creating the next horror icon, Wan is nearly single-handedly (well, let’s not leave his writing partner Leigh Whannell out of the conversation) responsible for the creation of several of the most iconic characters in horror. That’s insane.

There’s a lot going on in the next few weeks that are quite important to the state of horror. With The Nun being a massive hit, the Conjuring universe surely is going to continue, while another franchise is waiting in the wings – Halloween. There is a lot riding on the success of Universal’s sequel, which will be the testing ground for other slasher franchises. Our insiders tell us that New Line Cinema actually looks down on both A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, and Michael Myers slaying the competition will be the signal of a reversal that could grab the attention of top executives. The (hopefully) good news is that with the rights issues behind Jason Voorhees and Friday the 13th soon to be cleared up (unfortunately, we don’t have any insight into this), now is the perfect time for New Line to get behind their own cinematic universe that started with Freddy vs. Jason back in 2003.

If you thought horror was hot last year, just wait until you see what’s next.