As recently announced, Sinners writer and director Ryan Coogler is developing a new series of The X-Files. But what direction might it take?
NB: The following contains spoilers for The X-Files’ earlier seasons…
A new series of The X-Files hasn’t been made yet, but one recently edged a little closer. Sinners director Ryan Coogler has confirmed long-held rumours that he’s developing a new take on the adventures of FBI agents Mulder and Scully and their habit of exposing the weird side of America – seven years after they last returned in a two-season revival of the show.
A lot has happened in the intervening years. Covid-19, a resurgent right-wing American Presidency, the rampant evolution of social media into a headwind of conspiracy theory and fractured reality. Coogler is also a different creative force than X-Files creator Chris Carter, with whom he has consulted about a new show. Coogler is a cinematic force who’s proven again lately, with his feted, successful (and quite brilliant) southern gothic vampire film Sinners, as one to be reckoned with.
As discussed on The X-Cast podcast on the Film Stories Podcast Network, Coogler appears to be a long-term fan of the original Carter-created series on Fox. He described his excitement at working on it, and his hope to deliver a show for the fans, old and new, with episodes that would be “really f*cking scary” if they get them right. Though the jury amongst X-Philes on a new series is out, many are also thrilled at the prospect of someone with Coogler’s pedigree taking the helm.
The question now is what Coogler will do with The X-Files. No details are forthcoming about what a new show might entail. Disney hasn’t confirmed it’s officially happening, so it might all disappear in a puff of smoke. Assuming a new series is in the ether, though, let’s speculate on those directions Coogler might head as he unlocks the FBI basement office and reopens those files…
A second revival
By second, I mean again hauling the dormant original series out of mothballs and continuing the extended adventures of David Duchovny’s Mulder and Gillian Anderson’s Scully.
This happened before, in 2016, with a six-part limited series (only badged as Season 10 later on), the success of which broached a longer, ten part Season 11 by that point. It had been almost 15 years since the original run ended on a fairly lacklustre whimper in 2002, and almost a decade since the misjudged second film adaptation, I Want to Believe in 2008, which saw The X-Files – alongside bedfellows such as Twin Peaks or Prison Break – positioned as part of the ‘legacyquel’ trend kicked off seismically by Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015.
In 2016 and 2018, Carter just about managed to get away with same old same old, despite placing the now middle-aged Mulder and Scully in a world of smartphones, drone strikes, artificially intelligent homes and the social media generation. The result was uneven but pressed many of the right nostalgia buttons – though many fans baulked at the near-retcon approach to the show’s famous ‘mythology’ arc that yielded some eye-opening revelations at points.
One of which was Scully, by the end of Season 11’s finale ‘My Struggle IV’, growing pregnant. This was after her original son William was revealed not to be Mulder’s child, but the warped progeny of the Cigarette-Smoking Man and an all-powerful alien/human hybrid with evil supervillain traits. It all went a bit X-Men, really. But it left Mulder and Scully with an awkward doorway toward retirement, family life and a possible way out of their never ending paranormal investigations.
Were Coogler to bring them back and continue the original story, he has a lot of balls in the air he would need to drop. Child two would by now be seven or eight years old. Mulder would be closer to 70 years old than 60, with Scully not a million miles behind. The conspiracy and mythology are… who knows where? A melange of ideas here and there. Even ever loyal boss Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) may or may not be dead under a car. Point being, what would effectively be a ‘Season 12’ might struggle to carve a clear and easy path for new audiences.
The obvious boon for a second revival is the presence of Duchovny and Anderson, who for many are The X-Files. Though Robert Patrick’s Doggett, introduced in Season 8, was a more than competent substitution for Duchovny when the latter departed as a regular fixture, the show was never quite the same. Though you can consider Mulder and Scully iconic characters, the actors who play them are the secret sauce.
Could you have The X-Files without them? The answer to that question lies in the alternative.
A reboot
Reboots and revivals can get a little confused by audiences these days, terms often interchanged and misappropriated. If revivals bring back something popular with the same elements intact, reboots take a popular concept and start again, attempting to update the magic for a new generation.
What would this look like for The X-Files, should Coogler opt to start again? The core pairing of Mulder and Scully is archetypal, albeit reversed from traditional norms: he’s the believer, she’s the sceptic. That dichotomy, underscored often with religious versus scientific belief in different forms, was one major reason why Duchovny and Anderson made those characters work in the 1990s. Their chemistry and attractiveness helped cement them in the zeitgeist, but it also worked because they had an innate ideological conflict between them.
Coogler would have to keep that intact, but the rest could be entirely up for grabs. Perhaps this time Mulder is female and Scully male. Or perhaps one or both are Black. Maybe they work for the FBI, perhaps they don’t. Crucially, would their work be consigned still to a dungeon, or exist further in the light? Perhaps in an age of open conspiracy theory, fractured belief systems and alternate narratives about basic facts and truths, Mulder’s work would no longer be considered fringe.
The nature of the storytelling could also be different. Perhaps Coogler will embrace full serialisation, telling a single story about aliens or monsters or cults across a season. There might alternatively be no ‘mythology’, and the series placed more as a quasi-anthology show, focused firmly on the case of the week rather than the complicated, grand mythic tale of our heroes’ families. Given Coogler’s comments, he seems intent on making The X-Files terrify audiences again as it did at its height. That might point to the latter as an approach.
What a reboot provides is an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. It could retain the driving conflict on which Mulder and Scully’s bond is constructed while enjoying the freedom to jettison three decades of complicated, arcane mythology and backstory. It could also give Coogler an opportunity to break away from how the show was previously presented on a visual or narrative level, transforming the idea into something contemporary and fresh.
Though this sounds tempting, there is also a third route Disney might consider between these two approaches.
A fusion of both
If reboots and revivals are two diverse approaches, how can they be combined? For The X-Files, the key would be remaining in the same established universe while starting again in terms of approach, character and visual aesthetic.
Based on the scant information we currently have, this appears to suggest the direction Coogler is headed. Carter has commented that Coogler is looking at “a diverse cast”, which suggests he’s developing original characters (the original show only had two recurring actors of colour, neither of whom showed up very often). Both he and Anderson have also separately confirmed that they’ve discussed the project. We can only assume similar conversations have been had with Duchovny, who of the two would be the more likely to return to the fold.
This points to a scenario in which Coogler has new characters, be it a new duo or team, revive the X-Files and begin picking up where Mulder and Scully left off. Anderson has suggested she might ‘pop in’ if it was the right idea, so in this scenario both Mulder and Scully would still be played by the original actors but not feature as main characters in the new show. As with many other revivals, they might serve as one off or recurring guests who help shepherd younger replacements while existing as a tether to the show’s history.
It’s a tricky idea to pull off because X-Philes have resisted attempts to replace Mulder and Scully for decades. Doggett and Reyes were a fine duo, but walked in the shadow of bigger and better characters. In the first revival, Miller and Einstein (played by Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose) were summarily rejected as facsimiles, despite feeling more like a cheeky in-joke thanks to Carter’s devilish sense of humour. Point is, Coogler will need to work hard at giving audiences new protagonists they might accept in the place of Mulder and Scully.
If we do get an entirely new era of The X-Files, all of this speculation makes clear that the task will be a mighty one. Old fans will have expectations, some fair and some not. New fans will need vibrant, fresh ideas to draw them in. Disney will consider it valuable, and presumably want to milk the intellectual property for all it’s worth. The stakes are high because its failure might consign the series to history.
Hopes are high. Coogler is at the top of his game. The X-Files could make hay with the topsy turvy America of 2025. Whatever path The X-Files chooses to tread, should Mulder and Scully gain a new lease of life, the truth they seek could be more exciting than ever.
You can find A J. on social media, including links to his podcasts and books, via Linktr.ee here. Don’t miss him on The X-Cast: An X-Files Podcast on the Film Stories Podcast Network too.
—Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
