Ryan Coogler's X-Files reboot got a series order — fans are just glad Chris Carter isn't running it
Hulu just greenlit the first X-Files without Mulder, without Scully, and, crucially for a chunk of the fandom, without its creator in the writers' room.
Hulu gave a series order to Ryan Coogler's X-Files on October 13. Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel star as two highly decorated, vastly different FBI agents assigned to a long-shuttered division for unexplained phenomena — new characters, the logline stresses, not Mulder and Scully.
Coogler wrote and directed the pilot and executive produces through Proximity Media, fresh off Sinners. Jennifer Yale (Outlander) is showrunner, Onyx Collective and 20th Television produce, and Deadwyler and Patel are co-EPs. Coogler's statement went out of its way to bow to the original:
"What Chris Carter created is special."
— Ryan Coogler, in Hulu's announcement
What the announcement doesn't have is Carter in any creative role. He carries an executive producer credit, but he's told The Daily Beast he won't even read the scripts — he wants to watch the show as a fan. His own description of his job, given to TheWrap, was "only as a cheerleader."
"They don't need my blessing."
— Chris Carter, to TheWrap
Why "Carter-free" is a selling point
For outsiders, celebrating a creator's absence sounds cruel. For X-Files fans, it's the scar tissue from the 2016–2018 revival, which Carter ran on Fox. His mythology episodes — the "My Struggle" quartet — were the revival's most criticized hours, and the series finale's big twist, that the Cigarette Smoking Man had medically impregnated Scully, remains one of the most reviled reveals the franchise ever produced. Even TVLine, back when Carter first confirmed he'd sit this one out, polled its readers with the words "bummed or relieved."
The cleanest evidence is Gillian Anderson herself. She declared she was done playing Scully right after Carter's finale aired. Asked about the Coogler version in 2024, she called him a brilliant director and reopened the door on air:
"Maybe I'll pop in for a little somethin'-somethin'."
— Gillian Anderson, on Today
Scully's availability, in other words, has tracked exactly one variable: who's writing.
Anderson quit The X-Files when Carter ran it. Under Coogler, she's "not saying no."
What happens to the old guard
The door isn't just ajar for her. Carter told The Daily Beast he expects both Anderson and David Duchovny to make appearances in the reboot — though he insists he has no idea how deeply Coogler's version will engage with his mythology. Carter also says he still has one more X-Files story of his own to tell, and he's shelving it until he sees where the new show goes.
The project has been cooking since March 2023, when Carter himself let slip on a podcast that Coogler planned to remount the series with a diverse cast. Three and a half years, one pilot, and one series order later, the truth is back in production. No premiere date yet.
Previously we wrote: I'd bet on Miami Vice '85 making $600 million — even though the last reboot tanked