Ryan Coogler Directs The X-Files Reboot as Hulu Gives the Green Light

The X-Files reboot gets the green light: in the age of casual post-Covid conspiracy theories and working-from-home burnout, the truth is still out there.

After nine seasons airing continuously from 1993 to 2002, two films and a two-season revival that began in 2016, The X-Files, the series created by Chris Carter and starring FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, is now about to undergo its first reboot.

Buoyed by the success of Sinners, the Southern Gothic film that swept through Oscar nominations, BAFTA wins and record box-office takings, Ryan Coogler has earned the right to make his passion project, turning what had for years been a poorly documented UFO sighting into something concrete: Hulu today officially greenlit the reboot of The X-Files, entrusting Coogler with writing and directing the pilot episode.

The synopsis reads: “Two highly decorated but deeply different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”

Alongside Ryan Coogler himself, executive producers include Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler for Proximity, together with Chris Carter, while Proximity’s Simone Harris will be credited as co-executive producer.

Danielle Deadwyler and the still-unknown future of The X-Files

When The X-Files debuted in 1993, conspiracies were fascinating, exotic things. Today, between government UFO hearings, declassified documents and world leaders tweeting things even a season-finale villain would struggle to come up with, conspiracism has become decidedly mainstream.

And when the real world starts to look as though it was written by drunken screenwriters, you need someone capable of imposing order on the chaos by asking the right questions: what if we are the real horror? Coogler is perfect for this approach.

The first certainty about The X-Files reboot is the casting of Danielle Deadwyler, from Station Eleven and Till, who will play one of the two lead agents. The second face is still unknown, but one detail is already clear: although their personalities will be very different, their relationship will be built around subtler shades rather than a clash between blind faith and absolute rationalism.

Chris Carter thirty years later: critical thinking in the post-truth era

Coogler’s idea is to preserve the framework of the original television series, intertwining alien mythology, conspiracy theories and classic “monsters of the week” in a kaleidoscope of supernatural oddities. In a recent interview, Gillian Anderson said she would welcome an appearance in the reboot, recounting her last phone conversation with Coogler: “If anyone is going to do it, I think you’re the perfect person, and I wish you luck. Call me.”

But it is Chris Carter himself who reminds us how difficult the task is: “The X-Files dealt with a central conspiracy, but now the world is so full of conspiracies that it would be a different show.” This saturation feeds itself through the internet. For this reason, Carter believes The X-Files should shift its focus: no longer the search for a hidden secret, but an examination of a world in which too many competing truths exist.

The real narrative challenge therefore becomes showing how the fragmentation of reality and the human need to believe make it increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. As a belated Mulder might say: “It doesn’t matter whether you believe in aliens. What matters is knowing why you want to believe.”