It, the second movie version of Stephen King’s novel about a clown who terrorizes a small town, has surpassed The Exorcist to become the highest-grossing horror movie of all-time at the US box office.

The Stephen King brand, a huge marketing campaign, and the impressive sight of Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise the circus clown was the perfect recipe record-breaking box-office success. The Exorcist remains the no. 1 box office horror movie of all-time internationally, however, having scored $441.3mn in global revenue, compared to It’s $404.3 mn. An additional caveat is that the classic earned its impressive haul in 1973 and inflation isn’t taken into account when comparing the revenue of the two movies.

It needs to earn an additional $40mn to become the highest-grossing horror movie of all time worldwide. As the film’s performance remains strong after just three weeks since its release, that target shouldn’t prove too difficult to achieve.

The horror genre continues to enjoy immense popularity, not only with moviegoers, but also with mainstream gaming audiences. In addition to franchises such as the popular Resident Evil and Silent Hill, which remain popular, more niche titles tend to adopt the genre too. Online gaming sites, such as bitcasino.io offer a number of themed games, including Aliens and Frankenslot’s Monster. The website also provides live casino games, that while yet remain non-themed, may yet meet the demand of horror fans sooner rather than later.

The box office performance of It surpassed expectations, giving Warner Brothers along with New Line, the studios that brought Pennywise to theaters, very good cause to celebrate. The retelling of the cult classic has made $236.3mn to date in the US, while The Exorcist grossed $232.9mn. The Exorcist also scored two director’s cut re-releases.

It was directed by Mama’s Andres Muschietti and stars Bill Skarsgard in the iconic lead role. The remainder of the cast is heavily made up of teen actors, including Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, and Jaeden Lieberher. The story follows a group of young outcasts as they face a dark force causing havoc in their town.

The film cost a budget-friendly $35mn to produce and only took two weeks to surpass The Exorcist. Due to its hefty profits, it is little surprise that the studio is pushing ahead with a sequel.

It could yet break more records. It currently ranks as the biggest September opening in box office history, the previous record was held by Hotel Transylvania 2, which scored a $48.5mn 2015 debut. It is also ranks second for an R-rated movie over a three-day window, behind only Deadpool.

The success of the film further marks the highest-grossing box office performance from a film based on a Stephen King novel – the top 10 includes two films released within the last 10 years. King had another of his novels brought to the big screen this year, The Dark Tower, which scored an unimpressive $50.4mn in the US.

It continues the impressive track record of Warner Brothers and New Line, with genre productions on both small and large scales. The distributors rekindled a fondness for horror films in 2012, when The Conjuring scored $137.4mn in the US, in addition to a string of positive reviews.