A24 is getting into the novelization game

There’s a good chance A24 saw this exact tweet saying they would have sold out the book from The Holdovers if they had been the ones to release the film, and immediately called a marketing team together to figure out the next best thing. Whether or not this is how it actually went down over at A24HQ, that bright idea turned out to be a series of novels adapted from Ti West’s recently concluded X trilogy. They did miss out on a pretty clear opportunity to call the new collectibles “booX” instead of a “novelization trilogy,” but we’ll try not to hold that against them.

The studio announced the series today in a press release specifying that the booX, which were all written by Bram Stoker award-winning horror author Tim Waggoner, are meant to “pay homage to the beloved movie tie-in paperbacks of the 1980s.” The studio also promises that the booX will “translate West’s vision into pulpy print format with grisly new details drawn from the original screenplay.” We’re not holding out too much hope here, but maybe some of those new tidbits will retroactively fix the bummer that was series-concluder MaXXXine’s final act. Fingers crossed. You can purchase the first novel, based on 2022’s X, on September 24 for $18. Pearl and MaXXXine will follow on November 19 and “early 2025” respectively.

Whether this is a reaction to the $330 LOEWE “I Told Ya” shirt from Challengers that people (well, Jennifer Lawrence) are apparently actually buying, a bid to regain some of the ground they’ve lost to NEON in the awards game in recent years, or simply another attempt to keep their dedicated fanbase happy, A24 has really been upping their merch game recently. In addition to the standard t-shirts and Blu-rays, you can also buy exclusive colored soundtrack vinyls, leashes and collars for your dog, and even an Iron Claw foam hand among many other things. The studio also announced a new scratch-off lottery competition for its exclusive AAA24 members this week, including prizes that range from extremely enticing (set visit for a film, trip to the Ex Machina hotel) to some that can generously be described as “a bit of a reach” (one year of TurboTax or H&R block, one year subscription to a laundromat).