Obsessing on all things The X-Files and Ten Thirteen online since 2005
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 The X-Files mythology episode by episode analysis |
 Thematic articles on X-Files and everything 1013 |
 The archival database project |
The X-Files Revival 2016Introduction: Revival |
The X-Files Revival 2018Introduction: From Season 10 to Season 11 |
+ Perihelion (novel, 2024)
+ IDW comics (S10, S11, more, 2013-2018)
More Chris Carter! Another fresh interview with The Creator, this time from the Danish Conspiracy podcast Sammensværgelsen. There is some significant overlap with the immediately preceding interview that I covered a few days ago, but there is also more detail here. Carter talks about the new Director’s Cut of the second movie, his ideas for a “My Struggle 5”, Coogler’s new project, and his next movie “Queens For A Day”.
As always, I’ve tried to transcribe “the actual quotes” that are interesting [and my comments are in brackets].
[The movie with the simple name “The X-Files I Want To Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn” is coming out August 14 — barely in 4 days!]
[This is quite as I initially expected: changes sprinkled throughout related to pacing and censorship, aimed at giving the whole movie a better flow and a feel that is closer to a horror film. No big changes to the structure of the movie, no new scenes, perhaps little to no new dialogue. The differences will be too many to be able to make a summary of the comparisons, and a detailed comparison will be more of an academic exercise to illustrate film theory. The experience of watching the new cut might be marginally better for someone who has already seen it, it will probably won’t change your opinion on it. The new cut might be the cut that you might recommend to someone who will see the movie for the first time, from now on.]
[It’s impossible not to be excited or at least curious for what this payoff is. Even after all we went through with the 4 Struggles, I want to know what he has in mind! See the previous interview for some more theorizing.]
In terms of timing, now there is the Director’s Cut, and the Coogler reboot comes first. “You don’t want to start competing with yourself.”
[That is true, but it’s also true that one project will feed off each other if they are successful, so you have to strike when the iron is hot. What happens if Coogler’s pilot is picked up for a series? What happens if it runs for several seasons? What happens if Mulder and/or Scully appear in it, as Gillian Anderson is teasing? Duchovny and Anderson are names that can pull enormous attention, but none of them are getting any younger, and Carter either.]
“Always give the fans what they want, and not what they want, not what they’re expecting. That’s a very important thing, when you give people what they want it’s kind of hollow in a way. It’s better to give them what they want but not in the way they might have imagined.”
[This directly echoes something he said in his previous interview regarding the revival. Add unexpected plot complications to increase engagement with the story.]
When he is asked of more TXF comics coming: “Amazing!” “The show has a life of its own.”
On such side-products: “They always pay me the courtesy of running things past me.” [Interesting that he says that it’s a “courtesy”: it probably means that Disney/Fox is not legally obliged to do anything, but they still keep Carter in the loop for all things TXF.]
He doesn’t know more about the comics. “I’m not a comic book guy, but I try to keep the soul of the show in mind.” “Mulder and Scully are The X-Files and it always has to involve them.” [I also see this as a hint that Carter is unlikely to put his future series finale idea in comic book format or even novel format: he will always try for a live action project.]
He’s only had had one phone conversation with Ryan Coogler. “I haven’t read the script.” “I’m just like the fans, I’m waiting to see what he comes up with.” [He truly is much less involved with this project than what people might believe. Coogler’s project is a completely separate project.]
He only heard things indirectly from being in Vancouver. [Possibly the production of Coogler’s pilot and Carter’s new movie overlapped.]
“I was told they were using 8 cameras”, this is new for TXF. [TXF typically used only one camera at a time, with at most two being on set at any point in time. What this means for Coogler’s pilot is hard to tell.]
[This is Carter’s next movie, written by his wife Dori. See Eat The Corn article from May. Here we get the first hints as to the content of it!]
“It is a horror movie of sorts but in a completely different way.”
When he found Dori’s script from some 30 years ago, he suggested her to rewrite it with a real-life person in mind as the lead, a talk show hostess.
It has some of the same cast and a lot of the same crew as TXF. He specifically mentions people from the revival: producer Grace Gilroy, production designer Mark Freeborn, director of photography Craig Wrobleski, and people in props and casting.
He hopes it gets released before the US midterm elections in November because it has a political message.
With the “I Want To Believe” Director’s Cut coming out next week, Chris Carter is doing interviews with the active fan podcasts. The main thing that comes out of this is that he is certain that he will be able to continue the show’s mythology and give resolution to his “My Struggles” arc (the word “unappreciated” comes up several times), while he has no involvement with any other project using the X-Files brand (namely, the Coogler reboot).
Here are the details for the interview with the “Hey Danny It’s Mulder” podcast. [My comments are in brackets.]
“I was given a couple of directions when I was asked to reboot the show.” He had to reintroduce the series to new viewers, the characters, their “entanglement”.
[Based on these constraints that were external to Carter, we got much of what fans have been complaining about: a soft-reboot of both the mythology and of the Mulder-Scully relationship. Over the two seasons there is a clear evolution of the MSR, but I can’t say as much about the mythology; hence Carter’s tease that a season 12 would have given answers to the mythology.]
For “My Struggle I” he had gone to a convention on the secret space program. “Mulder’s struggle is weeding through all this conspiracy business.” Tad O’Malley was an Alex Jones-like character. He wrote this in 2015, before the current world where conspiracies are everywhere, this too is “unappreciated”.
[As I wrote in my review, MS1 presents us a world full of wild conspiracies, and I expected that what would follow would be Mulder separating the lies from the truths, finding the truth in all this confusion. Apparently this was Carter’s intention too. However, frankly I don’t see this reflected in the rest of the Struggle episodes at all.]
He met with Frank Spotnitz “subsequent to the series finale”. Frank said “you didn’t give them what they wanted”, Chris replied “what I gave was more than what they wanted, I think that was unappreciated by people.”
[For all my reservations about these episodes (and they are many!), I have to salute the artist in Carter and his strive for something more ambitious than just fan service, meaning not giving us a predictable and by-the-numbers evolution of the mythology or of the MSR but inserting complications. It is these complications that can end up making us more obsessed after all, which is what he means by “more than what they wanted”.]
“I had a bigger idea in mind and it played out through four mythology episodes, I’m hoping we can come back and explore that idea.”
“It took four hours to add up to the revelation of the meaning and purpose for all of it, which is two words.” “That will tell you the tale that when TXF returns, and I have no doubt someday it will return in whatever fashion, that will be what we will be exploring.”
[The confidence of the man is amazing! Of course he is trying to generate interest for continuing his story in a self-reinforcing loop. I am ready to believe he has clear ideas for what comes next, but I am not convinced at all that Disney will give him the chance to do it.]
“It really turns into the science fiction show it always promised to be with those two words”, which are the tagline that appears in the beginning of MS4, “Salvator Mundi”.
“The CSM’s struggle was that he helped father a child who he calls his own, the damage he did to that child, and how that child who turned a mobile as an infant, had powers that were harnessed and abused, and how he, that character William, will fit into the bigger larger picture of the mythology, and what the unborn child of Mulder and Scully will represent and come to know.”
[On “Salvator Mundi”: this is Lating for “saviour of the world” and is used for Jesus Christ in Renaissance iconography. Time and time again Carter has hinted at the clue that nobody has caught on for what comes next, and I have theorized at length here (and been disproven by Carter!). If the tagline is the clue, then of course many, many fans have thought of this already: it is hard to miss! What does this mean? William is the “saviour of the world”, as prophesied in earlier episodes (7X04: Amor Fati, 9X11: Providence), and in the context of “11X10: My Struggle 4” he did save the world from the CSM’s and the Syndicate’s plan by killing them all. What can come next, and be very science fictional? I can only think of something related to William’s genetics and powers, which might be a precursor to changes in the larger human population, bringing the world closer to a revelation of some kind. Carter had already hinted at something related to the alien genome and about Scully; here he also adds her second child in the mix. All of this sounds very X-Men-like (which is a direction hinted at by episodes like “10X2: Founder’s Mutation“, the Ghouli.net website or even the post-s11 book “Perihelion“. The other thing I can think of is that season 12 would have seen the return of the aliens and their colonization plans, and William’s genetics and powers would play a role in humanity’s fate in this heavenly struggle. Here I am saying all of this when I was already saturated with the religious iconography all the way back in “8X21: Existence”…]
He spoke with Coogler only once. He hopes his big idea and Coogler’s are “not in competition with one another”. Carter praises Coogler for his past work and the fact that he was awarded and recognized for it. The idea of a TXF project where he is not involved “keeps you on edge”.
[It does sound like he is a bit uncomfortable with it all. If Coogler’s project has different lead characters and actors, then how could there be any tension between Coogler’s potential series and Carter’s potential season 12? Only if Coogler’s mythology, instead of focusing on something new altogether, also involves elements that Carter wants to make use of, like the Syndicate’s plans/the aliens/William; or if Coogler plans to involve the characters of Mulder and Scully in a way that would contradict what Carter has in mind. Any of these options sure sound exciting and I hope something out of all this materializes so that we can learn more of them.]
[The Director’s Cut is coming August 14, a trailer for it has been released with no new footage as far as I can tell.]
[As revealed here on Eat The Corn, Carter and wife Dori have finished shooting a feature film in Vancouver earlier this year!]
It is “unlike anything I’ve ever done”. It is unlike TXF, except for one science fiction element. it features 102 Canadian actors.
When he first met again Craig Wrobleski for this movie (the director of photography for TXF season 11), he bought him Rick Rubin’s book on art for him, and Craig was going to get him same book.
He is working with a Tracy Temple (Temple? Trebble? Trouble?) for the movie’s music, she is a “terrific composer”.
Chris and Dori are going to hit the festival circuit with the movie.
[I have no idea what this is, but I really hope they make it all the way to finishing it and finding a distributor. It looks like post-production is quite advanced already.]
https://www.heydannyitsmulder.com/episodes/episode13
Since the last update in May, here is another update on the new The X-Files project, aka “the reboot” for lack of a better name or descriptor, handled by Ryan Coogler.
The IMDb page is up.
Shooting was scheduled from 11 May to 11 June.
Director of Photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw posted another series of photos from her time shooting the pilot in Vancouver (plus one of Coogler for his birthday): again, hard to tell anything on the end product from this, other than it looks like they will be making use of the Vancouver forests (as pictured in this article), which is excellent news.
Some Vancouverites reported that shooting was taking place at the Pendrell Suites at 1419 Pendrell St, which is what had been used for the exterior shots of Scully’s apartment (and gave the name to the character of Agent Pendrell).
The choice of shooting there could be significant: will there be a flashback where Scully makes an appearance? will the investigation involve a past case of Mulder and Scully’s and the new agents look for clues at Scully’s past apartment? On the other hand, it could just be a case of making use of an interesting building and frequent shooting location, unrelated to its past connection to the show.
This Twitter/X account has a behind the scenes photo of Patel and Deadwyler. No source is provided, so treat this with a grain of salt — because nothing else from the production has filtered to the public! If you know the actual source, or know that this is fake, please reach out!
That same account posted a shooting notice and a photo of the shooting for Pendrell Street, although with no source provided it’s hard to be sure this is legitimate.
Stage 49 Ltd is indeed a Vancouver-based production company.
The photo is taken from Broughton Street looking into Pendrell Street, so the location fits.
Canadagraphs, who had spotted shooting of the season 10 revival, also spotted shooting of the pilot, in this short video: shooting in a manor-like house, covered in sheeting (to make it look like nighttime?). This is not the Pendrell Suites.
The Direct
Himesh Patel: “I don’t want to say anything that’s going to get me disappeared. Needless to say, myself and Danielle Deadwyler are playing completely new characters, and we just wrapped on the pilot. If we get to do more… we’ll see where we go from there.”
Collider
Himesh Patel: “I really can’t tell you much with regards to anything other than it’s just a pilot, for now. We shot a pilot, we’ll see what happens, but I had a great time, and everyone was great to work with, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
Virgin Radio UK
Himesh Patel: “It’s Ryan Coogler who’s rebooting it. He’s an amazing filmmaker. And so again, just so glad to have even been asked. We had a lovely chat about it. I was at home. I got an email. And then I had breakfast with Ryan when he was in town for the BAFTAs and we had a chat about his sort of ideas for it beyond the script that I’d read and the character that we’re trying to build. It was a weird one because I was like, am I auditioning for you or are you trying to pitch this to me? Because obviously for me the answer is yes! And then we went on that journey and I just wrapped on it. It’s just a pilot for now. Hopefully people get to see it eventually. There’s two of us who will be the sort of centerpiece of the show, myself and an actress called Daniel Deadwyler who I worked with before. Completely new characters.”
Happy Sad Confused (at 44min)
Himesh Patel: “We shot the pilot. It was very, very special. We await a decision, of course. All I can tell you is I had an incredible time. It was [meaningful for me] maybe not as meaningful as for people who really dived into it or lived it at the time. I was maybe 3 or so when it first started, a little young to be watching it. You really come to understand the responsibility of it, the power of it, as a world.” “Ryan and his whole team and myself and Danielle were very aligned in that way that we love depth, we love everything to have a meaningful context. Ryan believes that the audience is intelligent and he wants to give them as much richness and tapestry as he can. Hopefully, people will see it.”
The Daily Beast
Danielle Deadwyler: “allow the change to happen”, “remain open-minded”
Barely a week after shooting concluded, Coogler and his production company announced a partnership with Netflix, moving away from working with Disney (THR article): “Proximity Media Television signed a multi-year deal to develop series exclusively for Netflix. Proximity’s prior overall TV deal at Disney expired earlier this year.”
Now, it was always the plan that Coogler would develop the concept and direct the pilot only, leaving the showrunning to another person, Jennifer Yale, so Coogler was never meant to be involved full time with a running series. It’s unclear how far ahead Coogler and Yale have planned stories, story arcs and character arcs, but Coogler did talk about multiple scripts in the past. It’s also unclear whether this new deal means that he cannot be involved at all with Disney+ productions.
In this context came the news from World of Reel that the pilot is a full two hours length, that it was shot in 65mm, and that Coogler is asking Disney to consider releasing it as a feature film!
Filming a TV production on film instead of digital is by now extremely rare, even more so on 65mm which is more of a feature film format (the original TXF series was shot on 35mm). Coogler and Arkapaw shot “Sinners” in 65mm as well. It looks like they have given this project the same care as for their larger projects and they want the prestige that goes with it.
We can only speculate what this means for the TV series beyond the pilot. Is Disney not as keen any more and Coogler is pushing for his work on the pilot at least to be seen by the public? Is Disney very keen and confident and want to use this as a way to promote the future series? Is the pilot’s story sufficiently self-contained for an independent release?
As Patel reminded us several times, only a pilot has been shot and a series is not a done deal. Coogler and Arkapaw are Academy Award-winning “hot” names right now, and Patel’s star is rising, as he was in Christopher Nolan’s “Odyssey”, one of the highest-grossing films of the year. An X-Files series involving these people will not be a little underground series that will find its audience but a costly prestige release that will have a big marketing push.
An unexpected third X-Files movie would be cool for sure! To be continued…
Director-producer Ralph Hemecker has died aged just 65 (Deadline). Ten Thirteen fans know him from his work on three episodes of Millennium, one for each season (and among the most memorable of the entire series) and one episode of The X-Files season 5 (not the most memorable):
IMDb page. He was involved in many projects, more recently Once Upon A Time and Blue Bloods.
Image credit: forthefans_2019 Instagram
Joe Harris (who over 2013-2016 gave us the Season 10 and 11 comics that this website covered in detail before it was cool*) will be back with more The X-Files comics! No other details yet.
Facebook announcementt by Joe Harris:
NBD, just announced THE X-FILES return to comics at the Dynamite Comics panel at Comic-con! Watch this space for more details coming soon…!!
Now, will this be more Mulder & Scully adventures? During his own canon? During the show’s live revival? Post-revival? (Post-Perihelion?) Will it focus on Coogler’s new duo Patel/Deadwyler? These are small steps, but there seems to be a marketing push from Disney/Fox/Hulu, increasing the visibility of the TXF brand in preparation of the relaunch around the Coogler reboot project. Time will only tell if this will pay off in anything interesting.
*: Aside from any issues with the artwork which was simple at times, and the fan service that could have been toned down a bit, the mythology presented in Seasons 10 and 11 of the comics held up much, much better than Carter’s revival — and on top of that, they told a conclusive story that gave the mythology an ending! That being said, I think we’ve covered all the ground there was to cover by now…
The X-Files LEGO set officially announced, finally after over ten years of efforts by fan WetWired, and it is beautiful! The announcement comes with a very nice promotional video where Gillian Anderson discovers the set, in-character as Scully!
LEGO set #21369 The X-Files, with photos
LEGO set #40869 Scully’s Lab, with photos
Edit 23/July: at Brick Nerd, an in-depth interview and plenty of photos with set designer Brent Waller and members of the LEGO Ideas team
Edit 30/July: a Reddit AMA with Brent Waller
