Horror fans are still a few weeks away from the summer release of MaXXXine, but director Ti West is already teasing another film in the series. Although the upcoming film was poised to be the final installment in the Mia Goth-starring X trilogy, West told Entertainment Weekly that he has an idea for an “unexpected” fourth movie.
“I do have one idea that plays into these movies that could maybe happen. I don’t know if it’ll be next. It might be. We’ll see… Then hopefully I can just put this in a box under the bed, take a breath, and figure out what’s next,” West told the outlet. While he is floating the idea of a fourth film in the hit horror series, West confirmed that MaXXXine “will probably be the end of the Maxine era,” describing his current idea for a fourth X movie as an “unexpected departure.”
“I’ll say that, if there’s more to be done in this X franchise, it’s certainly not what people are expecting it to be,” he shared. “It’s not just picking up again a few years later and whatever. It’s different in the way that Pearl was an unexpected departure. It’s another unexpected departure.”
The X franchise kicked off in 2022 with the release of X, A24‘s horror movie that paid homage to iconic slashers like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Set in 1979, the movie centers around a group of young filmmakers who set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, their plans being upended when the elderly couple that own the land, Howard and Pearl, catch the group in the act.
Starring Goth as both Maxine and Pearl alongside Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, and Scott Mescudi, the film was a massive hit, becoming one of the top horror films of the year. It was followed later that year by the prequel film Pearl, which was set in 1918 and served as a backstory to X‘s murderous old woman.
Set to hit theaters on July 5, MaXXXine picks up after the events of X. An official synopsis reads, “In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.” Along with Goth, the movie stars Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Collins, Halsey, and Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon.