Stephen King's Favorite Mia Goth-Led Horror Was Made to Save Money

The horror genre needed to be shaken up a little lately, and Ti West took this great responsibility upon himself. The director’s X trilogy saw great success, and the recent premiere of the final installment, MaXXXine, ended the story with a bang.

At the same time, as weird as it sounds, the third movie was largely moved by Ti West’s desire to save some budget and earn more cash money for A24.

MaXXXine Knew Its Budget Management

The thing is, Ti West initially only pitched the first movie, X, but his guardian angels from A24 wanted more: they wanted a trilogy. This made the director contemplate ways to make the most out of what he’d already done by reusing the assets he already had. That was how he came up with his vision for Pearl and MaXXXine.

“[It got me thinking:] ‘We had already spent all of this time and money building a Texas farm in New Zealand. How do we reuse it for free? How do we amortize all of those costs and make the movie less of a risk for A24?’ That’s where the idea came from from a practical standpoint,” Ti West explained to The Verge.

Despite their purely practical and cost-driven origins, both Pearl and MaXXXine did spectacularly, and even impressed the ultimate final boss of the horror genre.

MaXXXine Earned Praise from Fans and King

Stephen King is extremely self-conscious, blasting his own adaptations when he hates them, claiming they’re better than his original novels when he loves them — and, of course, regularly praising other authors and movie directors for their works. For MaXXXine, Ti West earned a short but heartfelt review from the King of Horror.

“MaXXXine is terrific,” King simply wrote on his X (formerly Twitter).

Previously, the author left a similar review for the first installment of the trilogy, the titular X, saying, “X is an extremely good horror movie. Scary, smart, knowing. Oh. And entertaining.” Ti West is clearly up there in the King of Horror’s personal list.

Fans and critics tend to agree. Both X and Pearl had raving reviews and scores across various platforms, and MaXXXine didn’t become the family disappointment, either. On Rotten Tomatoes, Mia Goth’s latest outing boasts a 78% Critic Score and 83% from the audience, supported by a strong 7.0/10 on IMDb.

So for any horror connoisseur, the X trilogy is a must-watch, between amazing scores and Stephen King’s personal recommendations.

Source: The Verge