The creator of the popular and formative “X-Files” series announced in person that a new adaptation is in the works. However, there are still many unanswered questions.
For eleven seasons with a total of 218 episodes and two films, the special agents Fox Mulder (Dave Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) took the audience to the FBI’s most sinister cases. The series is still considered a pop culture milestone today and combined several genre elements in its course, from sci-fi to horror to fantasy, as well as mystery, thriller and drama. The enormous popularity also helped to make quite a few guest actors famous, among others Bryan Cranston, Jack Black, Lucy Liu and Ryan Reynolds appeared here, to name a few.
In 2016 and 2018, an attempt was made to bring back the iconic duo of Mulder and Scully with seasons 10 and 11, the new episodes were met with mixed reactions at best. After a five-year break, however, something is happening again, and the news comes from the creator of “The X-Files” himself. Chris Carter revealed on the CBC podcast “On the Coast with Gloria Macarenko” (via Deadline):
“I just got off the phone with a young man, Ryan Coogler, who is going to remake ‘The X-Files’ with a diverse cast. So, he has a difficult task ahead of him because we’ve already covered so much.”
Chris Carter
New “The X-Files” series does one thing deliberately different from original
Ryan Coogler is no stranger to Hollywood, of course: The director and writer can point to popular titles like “Creed: Rocky’s Legacy,” “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” as well as “Next Stop: Fruitvale Station.” So the new “X-Files” series apparently has a capable filmmaker to look forward to.
Unfortunately, nothing is known about Chris Carter’s short version. Will Mulder and Scully return again? Can we expect a new team? Will there be a complete new start or will the previous stories be continued? All this is just as unclear as a potential start date. Since we have now received the first announcement, we can assume that the planning is still in its infancy and that we can expect a release in 2025.
However, Carter made one thing clear: The new series should be completely different, since there are enough conspiracy theories floating around in today’s world anyway. Since the original was criticized for encouraging this kind of unrealistic thinking, this development is understandable. Especially since conspiracy theories always have dangerous repercussions in reality, as we all should certainly be sufficiently aware.
What we do know for sure is where the new “X-Files” series will be seen: on Disney+. Coogler closed an exclusive deal with Disney in 2021 for five years; among other things, he is also to work on a Wakanda series. It’s no coincidence that all previous “X-Files” titles are already running on Disney+ – the franchise came from 20th Century Fox, after all, which Disney bought up in 2019 and renamed 20th Century Studios. Until you can watch the new “X-Files” attempt on the streaming service, you are welcome to try our sci-fi horror quiz: