Ryan Coogler’s The X-Files reboot has officially been greenlit, with The Harder They Fall actor Danielle Deadwyler stepping into Gillian Anderson’s shoes as the show’s leading FBI agent.
The filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated vampire horror Sinners and Marvel’s Black Panther has been teasing a possible revival since 2023, citing his love for the hit paranormal drama series that originally starred Anderson alongside David Duchovny as FBI agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder investigating unsolved cases.
The show will be made by Hulu, with Coogler writing and directing the pilot.
The official description for the reboot reads: “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
Deadwyler, 43, whose credits also include playing the mother of Emmett Till in the drama Till, The Piano Lesson and the forthcoming season of Euphoria, has been cast in an Anderson-like role as the show’s lead female FBI agent. A new version of Fox Mulder, Duchovny’s character, has yet to be cast.
Coogler confirmed his official involvement in the series for the first time in April, telling Last Podcast on the Left: “I’ve been excited about that for a long time, and I’m fired up to get back to it. Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f***ing scary.” He said he hoped the show would reach the “real X-Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”
The filmmaker added that he had been in conversation with the original Scully, “the great Gillian Anderson,” about a possible cameo or participation in the reboot.
“She’s incredible. Fingers crossed that she could be involved in some way,” he added.
Anderson has also given Coogler her own stamp of approval, telling ITV’s This Morning that she thought he was “the perfect person” to take on the challenge, and that she had told the director to call her.
She said of her possible involvement in the new series: “At some point, if the phone rings and it’s good and it feels like the right time, perhaps.”
The X-Files began in 1993 and ran for nine seasons until 2001, and was revived for two more seasons in 2016. It was also the subject of two spin-off movies.
News of the reboot was confirmed in 2023, but the show’s creator, Chris Carter, had suggested at the time that Anderson and Duchovny would not return at all.
Carter said he had a “really nice conversation” with Coogler when the reboot was first pitched to Fox.
“I just asked him what his ideas were, and he told me, and I said, ‘Those sound like good ideas,’” he recalled.
Coogler’s previous credits include Fruitvale Station, Creed and the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
On Saturday, Coogler became the first Black winner of the Bafta for best original screenplay for Sinners. The film is also up for a record-breaking 16 nominations at the Oscars ceremony next month.
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