It

Deadpool might need to watch his back. IT, the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s horror epic, just broke one of the R-rated box office champ’s records — and is primed to break a couple more before the end of the weekend. It’s doubtful that Pennywise will come close to overtaking the Merc With a Mouth’s massive box office haul, but it’s quite a win for the new horror film from Andy Muschietti, which already has a sequel in the works for 2019.

It won’t be hard for this fall to beat the worst summer box office in more than ten years, but it’s gearing up to blow the past few months out of the water. Fall — that is, Thanksgiving, a.k.a. all-the-kids-are-home-from-school-and-looking-for-something-to-do season — is almost upon us, and with it come some of the most exciting blockbusters of the year. And it’s Marvel vs. DC yet again as two superhero movies vie for the top spot.

Before the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s IT even hit theaters, early box office predictions suggested anywhere from a $60 to $70 million opening. By contrast, this year’s other big King adaptation, The Dark Tower, has grossed $47.9 million domestic in the month since its release. While we wait for the initial box office numbers to roll in, New Line is already developing a sequel to IT, but it probably won’t hit theaters until 2019.

Stephen King adaptations are a dime a dozen these days (almost literally; rights to his books are famously cheap), but a good Stephen King adaptation, like a properly cooked steak or a movie where Harrison Ford is actually awake, is exceedingly rare. Of the two adaptations of beloved King novels released this year, the idea that IT might be the superior of the pair seemed laughable a few months ago. IT is better than The Dark Tower in every conceivable way, but beyond the inevitable comparison, it’s just really good. Scary good, even.

One of the most challenging parts of any Stephen King adaptation is walking that fine line between childhood fears and adult terror. It is a perfect example: how do you take images meant to be frightening to 12 and 13-year-olds and adjust them for an adult audience? This is the formula that King has used to make him one of the most successful authors of all time, but stepping outside of the characters’ heads  —  and behind a movie camera  —  only ramps up the challenge of balancing tone just right. That’s why it’s been so heartening to hear It director Andy Muschietti say all the right things in pre-release interviews. For better or worse, it sounds like he really gets it.

Andres Muschietti is fast becoming a highly demanded director in Hollywod, especially after what looks like a big success with his It movie. Muschietti has signed on to direct a live-action adaptation of anime Robotech, and has said he wants to do Stephen King’s Pet Sematary next after he’s finished with It. Which might be sooner rather than later, as the director plans to start working on It 2 before touching anything else.

There’s something up with Stephen King — rather, his house, which looks to have been taken over by a certain sinister clown. It’s a little tough to notice at first, but if you look very closely, it appears the master of horror literature has put a red balloon up in one of the front windows of his gorgeous home in Bangor, Maine to celebrate the impending release of It.

If the early buzz is to be believed, fans couldn’t get any more excited for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s It. Not only does the film have one of the most-watched movie trailers of all time, and is also projected to make over $60 million in its opening weekend, it’s also coming into theaters riding a wave of impressive reviews. And somehow, the movie has done all of this without tipping its hand on some of the most impressive scares. All of this for an R-rated horror movie about children being jeopardized. We’ve come a long way since the original miniseries, America.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of The Dark Tower isn’t that it failed to live up to expectations decades in the making, or even that it mangled Stephen King’s source material in a way that die-hard fans found unforgivable. No, the most frustrating aspect of The Dark Tower is that it’s just… fine. Despite the plethora of negative reviews, it isn’t some disastrous flop a movie, nor is it an ambitious mess that reached for the stars and came crashing back to earth. It’s just sorta there, a Young Adult action-fantasy film that limps through its paces before ending with a thud. Really, how do you even make a King adaptation that doesn’t have a little bit of ambition?

The Alamo Drafthouse is holding a clown-only screening of the new Stephen King film. Tthat doesn’t sound scary, right? What’s the worst that could happen?