Right now, director Ryan Coogler's southern gothic vampire movie Sinners is bleeding the box office dry. It's already earned more than $161 million globally, and made headlines recently for its rare second week drop of only 6% in ticket sales, something no major movie release has been able to boast since James Cameron's Avatar in 2009. It's all the more impressive considering Sinners is a totally original story in the age of big IP mega-series. Word of mouth is strong for this one; go see Sinners!
This marks something of a streak for Coogler, whose credits also include Black Panther (which netted Marvel its first ever Oscar nomination), the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the Rocky reboot movie Creed. Where will Coogler go next?
According to Coogler himself, he'll be rebooting the classic science fiction series The X-Files. News first broke that Coogler was working on an X-Files reboot in 2023, but now things are finally started to heat up for the project. Coogler has confirmed that X-Files is "immediately next" on the docket, now that Sinners is out.
“I’ve been excited about that for a long time and I’m fired up to get back to it,” Coogler said during an interview on Last Podcast on the Left (via Variety). “Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really fucking scary.”
Ryan Coogler has spoken to Gillian Anderson about returning to The X-Files
The X-Files is an iconic sci-fi series that ran for nearly a decade, from 1993 to 2002. It's already been revived twice, in 2016 and 2018, so this is one of those properties that doesn't stay long on the shelf. The original show starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI truth-seekers Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The original show was heavily serialized, with Scully and Moulder often cracking different paranormal cases each week until the larger plotlines came into the focus deep into the series.
While Coogler's show will likely focus on a whole new set of characters, he did confirm that he has spoken to Anderson about the possibility of returning. "She's incredible and fingers crossed there," Coogler said, explaining that Anderson was still shooting Tron: Ares when they talked. "We're going to try to make something really great, bro, and make something for real X-Files fans and maybe find some new ones."
Anderson herself has been pretty insistent that she's done playing Dana Scully after the 2018 revival...but hope endures. During a recent appearance on the talk show This Morning to promote her film The Salt Path, Anderson was asked about Coogler's podcast interview and whether she had spoken to him about The X-Files reboot. She didn't sound as closed off as in the past.
"I spoke to him, and what I said was, ‘If anyone were to do it, I think you are the perfect person and best of luck, call me.’ At some point, if the phone rings and it’s good and it feels like the right time—perhaps," she said, adding tha Coogler is "amazing."
It sounds like a pretty solid endorsement to me. If Anderson did return for an X-Files cameo or guest starring role, there's little doubt that Coogler would do Scully justice. We'll see how things unfold once work begins in earnest on The X-Files reboot.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.
h/t The A.V. Club