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.