The universe of The Conjuring just keeps expanding outward. James Wan’s ’70s-set creepfest made swimming pools of money for New Line Cinema, which made a greenlighting a sequel pretty much a no-brainer. When that film sold like hotcakes too, New Line moved onto an Annabelle spinoff and a scheduled sequel, a solo project for the demon nun that torments Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, and yet another spinoff for the bowler-sporting Conjuring 2 villain known as The Crooked Man. And now the seventh film in the connected Conjuring world has been announced, promising more highly lucrative scares for New Line.

The studio announced yesterday, just two brief weeks after unveiling the plans for their Crooked Man movie, that our collective assumptions were correct and The Conjuring 3 will soon begin production. While details of the script have been kept under lock and key, the franchise parameters suggest that it will once again focus on the misadventures of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wilson and Farmiga have yet to confirm their returns). Perhaps this installment will find them a touch older, maybe set in the ’80s instead? Either way, the studio has already locked down The Conjuring 2 writer David Leslie Johnson to draw up a script for the new sequel. Deadline broke the news, and advised readers to expect Wan to return in a new capacity as producer, leaving the duties of directing to someone else.

To discern a pattern from New Line’s past activities: we should expect The Conjuring 3 to introduce two to three new villains, who will then get their own solo movies in the following years, earning money and precipitating The Conjuring 4: Still Conjurin’, at which point the cycle will begin anew.

More From ScreenCrush