LOS ANGELES — Late Sunday night after the SXSW Film Festival world premiere of the gory new A24 slasher "X" — about a 1970s porn crew terrorized by an elderly couple on a rural Texas farm — writer-director Ti West dropped one more juicy plot twist: a follow-up to the March 18 release is already on the way.
A prequel film, "Pearl," has already been filmed, shot in secret back to back with "X" in New Zealand during the pandemic. The surprise reveal now sets up West's "X" and "Pearl" to launch the first horror franchise from A24, the home of art-house genre hits "The Witch," "Hereditary" and "Midsommar."
The ambitious feat was partly inspired by the unique demands of making "X" during COVID-19. Production on the R-rated horror picture was set to take place in early 2021 in New Zealand, where cases were low. Facing a mandatory two-week quarantine on arrival, West thought, why not use the time to pen a sequel?
