MaXXXine Sends Off The X Horror Trilogy On A Box Office High Note

It hasn't been a blockbuster year for horror at the box office in 2024, but A24 and director Ti West just delivered a solid little debut with "MaXXXine." Building off of the success of "X" and "Pearl" in 2022, West's trilogy centered on Mia Goth's Maxine Minx has come to a close on a high note: The latest entry opened higher than either of the previous films by a pretty significant margin. While that's still small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, a win is a win.

"MaXXXine" opened to $6.7 million domestically over the weekend, landing at number four on the charts, with "Inside Out 2" ($30.3 million) and "Despicable Me 4" ($75 million) owning the lion's share of the attention from moviegoers. But horror fans still turned out to see what West and Goth had cooked up, with the film pulling in another $1.1 million overseas for a $7.8 million global debut.

For further context, "X" opened to $4.2 million in 2022 on its way to $14.7 million worldwide, while "Pearl" opened to $3.1 million en route to $9.8 million worldwide. One key difference is that "Peal" opened on nearly 3,000 screens, whereas "MaXXXine" opened on 2,450. So it made more money on fewer screens, giving it a better per-screen average. That said, it is important to point out that West made both "X" and "Pearl" on shoestring budgets of $1 million each, making use of sets that were already built to maximize efficiency. This trilogy capper was certainly more expensive, boasting an impressive ensemble cast. But even so, it should be another winner for A24.

The previous two installments of the trilogy were so cheap to make and utilized smaller marketing campaigns to pack in bang for buck. They probably didn't turn a big profit in theaters — if any — but the theatrical run set the films up to pretty much instantly become profitable on VOD, Blu-ray, streaming, etc. West had earned a bigger budget to make "MaXXXine" and the early numbers speak to it being a good investment for A24. They've got a trilogy of acclaimed movies that can make money for years to come. The arthouse studio now has a homegrown horror franchise, which is no small thing.

For West, it's a nice little victory lap. The filmmaker behind "House of the Devil" hadn't directed a feature since 2016's "In the Valley of Violence" before "X" came around. He had been working in TV, directing episodes of shows like "Wayward Pines" and "The Exorcist," among others. This brought West into the mainstream and allowed him not to make just his first movie in six years, but a full-on trilogy. Hollywood can be an unforgiving place full of sad stories. This is a good story.

Looking at the bigger picture, horror has enjoyed a solid couple of weeks at the box office. "A Quiet Place: Day One" delivered the year's first true blockbuster opening for the genre recently, with the film pulling in another $20.6 million domestically this past weekend. The prequel has made $177.7 million worldwide already and should pass the $200 million mark sometime this week. At the same time, we've got stuff like M. Night Shyamalan's "Trap," Oz Perkins' "Longlegs," and the highly anticipated "Alien: Romulus" around the corner. Things are looking up in the horror realm in the back half of 2024.

"MaXXXine" is in theaters now.