This one is for my boss, who is a die hard true believer. Hulu is ready to reopen The X-Files. Ryan Coogler’s new take on the classic sci-fi series has officially received a full-series order, bringing the long-developing project one major step closer to audiences.
As announced by The Hollywood Report, The series stars Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel as two highly decorated but very different FBI agents who form an unlikely bond after being assigned to a long-shuttered division dedicated to unexplained phenomena. It’s a fresh set of investigators entering the world of The X-Files, rather than a straightforward return to the familiar partnership of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
Coogler, the filmmaker behind Sinners and Black Panther, wrote and directed the pilot. Jennifer Yale, whose credits include The Copenhagen Test and Your Friends & Neighbors, serves as showrunner. Coogler is also an executive producer alongside Yale, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian and original X-Files creator Chris Carter.
The guest cast gives the new series some serious firepower. Steve Buscemi and Amy Madigan are among the familiar faces joining the project, alongside Ben Foster, Devery Jacobs, Lochlyn Munro, Tantoo Cardinal, Joel D. Montgrand and Sofia Grace Clifton.
For Coogler, the assignment carries a personal connection. He has spoken about watching the original series with his mother and wanting to respect what made it special to longtime fans while finding a new way into its world. That balancing act will be crucial for a franchise that spent years building its own mythology, with Mulder and Scully’s investigations into paranormal cases becoming a defining part of television in the 1990s.
The original The X-Files debuted on Fox in 1993 and ran for nine seasons before returning for two more revival seasons in 2016 and 2018. The franchise also produced two feature films. Its mix of strange cases, government conspiracies and episodes built around individual monsters helped make it a lasting influence on science fiction and supernatural television.
Coogler has previously indicated that his version intends to preserve both sides of that formula, with standalone cases alongside a larger ongoing conspiracy. That leaves room for the strange one-off encounters that made the original so memorable while giving the new agents a bigger mystery to unravel.
There is no release date announced yet for the Hulu series. For now, the biggest question is how Coogler will make this familiar world feel new without losing the unsettling appeal that made viewers want to believe in the first place.
