With a series of three horror movies made in no time at all, Ti West has been reflecting on how he and his collaborators managed such a feat.
Despite only releasing in March of this year, A24’s X has already released a follow-up, Pearl, which is set to hit cinemas soon and is already enjoying plaudits from no less than Martin Scorsese himself. Despite only being six months out from the first film’s release, a third entry has now been announced, which will be titled Maxxxine.
X and Pearl came to us courtesy of The House Of The Devil and The Innkeepers director, Ti West. The filmmaker has been chatting to Bloody Disgusting about how the trilogy came together with such haste. West was quick to credit the studio behind the films, A24, for being open to such an idea, explaining that he’d convinced the studio to immediately let him shoot Pearl on the same location in New Zealand before he’d even finished shooting X.
“We would’ve never made this movie. That was part of it. It was like if we go home, this script is nothing. I knew that when we wrote it. I knew that it was completely a gamble to do this back-to-back, or it was a writing exercise, and that’s all it would be because it wouldn’t make sense. The movie’s budget would be enormous to recreate all this stuff.”
You have to give A24 some kudos for backing West’s plan with its wallet, but it’s really no surprise given the studio’s proclivity for supporting artists who want to navigate riskier paths. West talking about the financial benefits of shooting two movies back-to-back will surprise few regular readers of this site as it’s a tactic we’ve seen used successfully for decades. But the organic way in which it occurred here is a testament to the open thinking and nimble processes at play at a smaller studio like A24.
“It was really a movie that was birthed out of one of the most unique timing scenarios ever,” added West. “But because of that, I knew that we could, because of all the amortisation of everything we had already put together with X, I just knew that there was a way to make a movie that looked a lot bigger than it was and to give a scope and an identity that would feel, not like a bonus movie, but a second completely different, fully realised story”.
We certainly enjoyed X and are looking forward to checking out Pearl, although we don’t have a UK release date yet. Maxxxine, the third film in the series hasn’t shot yet but A24 has given it the go-ahead and we’ll let you know more about its production as we hear it.
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