Even before its theatrical release, Ti West's slasher movie X could be heading toward trilogy territory. When the film debuted at South by Southwest this past weekend, West surprised the audience with news of an already-filmed, secret prequel titled Pearl. In X, an adult film crew takes residence at a withdrawn elderly couple's farmhouse (harboring the titular Pearl) to produce a pornographic film. Mia Goth plays both the older Pearl and X's protagonist, Maxine, and will star in the prequel set in 1918.
In an interview with Bloody Disgusting, West addressed his intriguing creative processes and the motivation behind making X but also hinted at the possibility of a third movie. Specifically, he highlighted the influence of different eras of filmmaking on X ('70s horror and exploitation, though X subverts many of those tropes) and Pearl. Then, he teased, "If we do the third one, it will be affected by a different type of cinema." This type of deliberate language certainly seems to hint at a third film at least being ideated, if it is not already in the process of getting made. Check out the full quote below:
“I’m very grateful for A24 having done this. Part of the idea of this movie that’s cool to me is that there is a bigger thing to it all. What I can tell you about Pearl, because we’ve already made it and it’s done, is it is very much a story about Pearl. So you will learn more about her. It is stylistically very different from X. You do not need one without the other, but they enrich each other in a specific way. In the way that X is affected, let’s say by 1970s horror independent filmmaking and Americana cinema, Pearl is influenced by a very different era of filmmaking. If we do the third one, it will be affected by a different type of cinema."
A trilogy would not be surprising given studio A24's apparent draw to West's work with X and Pearl. In the interview, the director described his time writing Pearl in quarantine and went on to say, "A24 called. They believed in it, and we've made the second one." And, though X was only just released today, Goth's dual roles and her appearance in Pearl seems to indicate that there's more to the film than meets the eye, so a third film could very well be the logical next step if there's more story or character arcs to wrap up.
Source: Bloody-Disgusting
