Few horror trilogies in recent years have been as ambitious, original, or eye-catching as Ti West’s X movies, which hit their logical conclusion in this week’s MaXXXine, which takes the character played by Mia Goth in the original X and threatens to drown her in the neon world of 1980s Hollywood. Between those two films and Pearl, West and Goth have charted a fascinating look at ambition and desire, all translated through West’s mastery of horror tropes, and the frequently unnerving intensity Goth can bring to her roles.
On the one hand, West has probably explored at least some of these ideas as much as he’s going to, noting in recent interviews that he’s basically lived and breathed the X-verse constantly for the last several years. On the other, this is Hollywood, where few things have more pressure for a sequel applied to them than a horror movie that can make a decent chunk of change off of a tiny budget. So it’s not entirely shocking to hear West express, in more than one interview—including a recent Variety conversation with former A.V. Club film editor Todd Gilchrist—that he’s got at least one more idea for a movie set in this universe kicking around somewhere in his head.
“I do have ideas of how to continue this ‘universe,’ or whatever you want to call it,” West conceded, echoing statements he made to Collider back in February, saying he had “one weird idea” for how to continue to build out this world. (That being said, he’s also stated that he’s reached “the end of the Maxine era,” so we might have seen the last of that one of Goth’s multiple characters in the franchise, at least.)
Above all else, though, West sounds a little tired. “In about two weeks, I will wake up for the very first time not thinking about something related to these movies,” he told Variety. “Then, the movie is done, it’s out, and I’m off to the next thing. And if that brings me back around to X great. But if it brings me to something else, that’s fine too. So, we’ll see.”