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Feb
25
2026

Coogler/Yale TXF spin-off gets pilot order

Ryan Coogler, Danielle Deadwyler; (inset) Jennifer Yale

It’s official! After initially teased by Chris Carter in March 2023 — essentially 3 years ago! — and being confirmed by Ryan Coogler in April 2025, and 10 years after season 10, we now have an official confirmation that a new The X-Files project is underway. (Article at Variety, Deadline)

For years it looked like this reboot project by Ryan Coogler was stuck in development hell, and then something would happen and the project would seem much closer to fruition than previously thought, then the whole process would repeat. We speculated whether this would be a hard reboot or a continuation in the same universe, if there would be an actual season order and of how many episodes, if the focus would be again on two leads or on an ensemble cast. Now we know more.

The pitch:

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

So this is an in-universe continuation, with new characters working on the X-Files division, allowing for old faces to potentially show up, but distanced enough so that it can build its own identity. It could be the exact same pitch as for the original series, with perhaps the difference of “highly decorated”: Mulder and especially Scully were quite young and early in their career at the start of the series. We can call it a “spin-off” instead of a reboot, especially since Carter has said that he has hopes for a Mulder-Scully continuation.

Disney wants to feed its intellectual property and present the series to a new generation: there is no ending for any type of product that has some success, no rest, no eternal slumber. All of these are very mercantile motivations, and I hope that this project will be able to stand on its own artistic and storytelling merits.

The team:

  • Cast: Danielle Deadwyler (this is such a cool name they could just name the character like that!); male lead not cast yet
  • Director: Ryan Coogler
  • Writer: Ryan Coogler (as part of his contract to develop new series for Disney)
  • Showrunner: Jennifer Yale (not Coogler: as a very high profile Oscar-nominated director, Coogler would develop the concept and hand the reins to somebody else, and go on to do feature films like “Black Panther 3” that has already been announced as his next project)
  • Executive Producers: Coogler, Yale, Sev Ohanian, Zinzi Coogler (Ryan’s wife and production partner), Chris Carter (probably only because he created the original show, not involved otherwise as per what he has said in interviews), Simone Harris (co-executive producer) — that’s a lot of producers and never a good sign
  • Casting: Francine Maisler (“Sinners”)
  • Director of photography: Autumn Durald Arkapaw (“Sinners”)
  • Music: I’d love to know, maybe Coogler’s associate and friend Ludwig Göransson (“Sinners”, also Star Wars and Christopher Nolan projects) but Mark Snow is irreplaceable

Timeline up until today:

  • March 2023: first teasing by Chris Carter that Fox is working on something.
  • April 2024: Carter, Anderson and Dean Haglund keep getting asked about it.
  • April 2025: Ryan Coogler confirms this is his next project: “if we do our jobs right, will be really fucking scary”
  • October 2025: first casting rumors: “Danielle Deadwyler would play one of the lead investigators whose character is partnered with a male investigator in the new series.” “Coogler is attached to write the pilot, executive produce, and potentially direct the new take on “The X-Files”.” Deadwyler is in her forties, quite older than both Anderson and Duchovny at the start of The Original Series. (Dark Horizons article)
  • October 2025: Production Weekly mentions “The X-Files” in production, just during one week.
  • October 2025: Coogler says he used to watch the show with his mom: “Like my relationship with ‘Rocky’ with my dad, ‘The X-Files’ is one of those things with my mom. My mom means the world to me — she’s actually here tonight — so this is a big one for me. I want to do right by her and the fans. My mom has read some of the stuff I wrote for it. She’s fired up.” (Variety article)
  • November 2025: cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw mentions she’s working on it. (Indiewire article)
  • December 2025: Coogler confirms the series will consist of both mythology/conspiracy and stand-alone/monster-of-the-week episodes: “it wouldn’t be X-Files if we didn’t do both” “[TXF] is one of the most beautiful American television shows ever made. Chris Carter was trying to make ‘Kolchak: The Night Stalker’. It’s like when you, as an artist, are trying to capture something that you were influenced by, and you make something totally new.” (Happy Sad Confused podcast; relevant clip)
  • January 2026: Coogler is intensively writing, and he mentions he discussed with Vince Gilligan to get advice on how to write for it: “Vince gave me a couple hours of advice over Zoom and answered all the questions I had — I’ve got them all in my notebook, and I go back to it often.” (odd that he’s a fan of the show but only discovered that Gilligan worked on it 2013) (The Hollywood Reporter article)
  • February 2026: casting director Francine Maisler mentions she’s working on it. (The Hollywood Reporter article)

What’s next?

This is an order for a pilot for Hulu (which, in the USA, is a Fox/Disney streaming channel; I guess internationally it would air on Disney+). Not a full series order. What to make of this? Is Disney not fully convinced about this and still wants a proof of concept before greenlighting (or not!) the production of more episodes? Maybe. In the 1990s series used to do pilots first, but more recently and with long production times full season orders have become more common. There could be a reversal of trend: Hulu is proceeding in a similar fashion for its new “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” (Deadline article). This allows to shoot a pilot, assess what worked and what didn’t, adjust, do reshoots, validate, and then proceed to series. This is what had happened famously with “Game of Thrones”. This also means that this will take time.

When could this be released? This has been in development for a while, so the pilot could be produced quite soon over the next few months. But then there’s the rest of the episodes. Series productions have been getting longer and longer. It could be within 2026 at best (if we go by the time it took to develop Jordan Peele’s “Twilight Zone” in 2019), but more likely not before mid-2027 if compared to development time of some recent projects (such as the recent “Alien: Earth”). Hulu will not just air the pilot, and will most likely wait for all episodes to be shot and go through post-production before deciding on an air date, so all of that adds time.

How many episodes could we expect, if and when this goes to full series order? Certainly not 20-25 like in the 90s. Other Hulu shows like “Alien: Earth”, “Shogun” and “The Bear” are all around the industry standard of 8-10 episodes, and I think this is what we should expect. And then if all goes well we wait more than one year for a season 2, most likely two years (as is the case with Vince Gilligan’s “Pluribus”, for example, Deadline article).

All in all, this is a project with some real talent involved and some people who do have a personal touch and are not just studio hands for hire, so this bodes well. However, there’s a “however”. It will be very challenging to make something original and something that justifies “The X-Files” brand as opposed to making a new series with a similar premise. It will be challenging to remain creative when there is so much scrutiny and things are discussed to death (there were dozens of articles just to say that Coogler had a conversation with such or such, can you imagine this happening over every single of his actions?). It will be challenging to tell a story about government conspiracies with a similar vibe to the original, when the USA is so obviously degrading towards authoritarianism in the real world. It will be challenging to maintain interest for this over a long enough time when there is So Much Content out there, and when years go by between seasons. And it will be challenging to not have the public reception of this completely destroy it, be it due to gatekeeping, to instrumentalized racism, to the overall dismal level of discourse in social media, or to plain legitimate quality concerns.

Mark me curious but also burnt by the Hollywood system’s desire to keep eating itself.

PS: happy 62nd birthday, Dana Scully! Was yesterday’s announcement timed to that?

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Feb
23
2026

RIP Ken Hawryliw + Paper Clip prop

Unfortunately, there has been another big, big death in The X-Files family. Ken Hawryliw, prop master for TXF seasons 1-5, passed away a few days ago.

Kenneth Harvey Hawryliw headed the props team: he designed and realized the props seen on the show. There’s a lot that the props team did: all the files and paperwork handled by Mulder and Scully, all the badges and guns, all the alien implants. In many cases the prop was a star of the episode, with perhaps the most iconic being the alien stiletto, with its simple and elegant design. But there’s a lot more we can mention: the alien fetus from The Erlenmeyer Flask; the sea shell from Fresh Bones; the demon drawings and sculptures from Grotesque; the Martian rock from Tunguska; the alien Rebels’ firewand from Patient X; the doll from Chinga; and many, many others, big or small.

The props department was also responsible for all the documents, newspaper clips, crime scene photos, or photos as part of the set design, all meticulously created to fit in with the item’s use within a scene. The UFO photo from Deep Throat; the DAT tape from Anasazi; the thought photos from Unruhe; young Fox and Samantha’s photo that the CSM had from Redux II; etc, etc.

In the late 90s, the “Unrestricted Access” CD-ROM showcased his work, with photos and videos and detail that was not visible on the few seconds these things are visible on the screen (although retrospectively this was very low-resolution!).

Ken also had a cameo appearance in the show as Byers’ co-worker in Unusual Suspects. He contributed with a script for the show, season 6’s Trevor. And he was also someone full of stories to tell, about his creative process and the behind the scenes adventures that went into making the show. Apart from TXF, he worked on “Battlestar Galactica” and many other shows shot in Vancouver. We covered here some of his long and detailed recent interviews (Conspiracy, TXF docu) and we reposted some behind the scenes photos he published on his social media Sci Fi Props Guy.

Please consider donating to the GoFundMe set up to support his wife and two minor children during this devastating time — his last credited work dates back to 2020, and the page explains Ken’s family’s situation. If you’re unable to donate, please share.

The image above was sent from Ken to Jesse J. Adams who shared it with me.

I also want to take this opportunity to share a piece of work from Ken, along with his assistant Jim Pate. I cannot tell you how elated and nervous I was when I acquired this recently. I have in my possession Scully’s medical file in the Strughold Mine from 3X02: Paper Clip, and this is the screen-used item. It is an excellent example of an expertly created prop fit for purpose. The paperwork, the numbers pointing to an archiving system, the pages design mimicking medical forms with fields to fill in, additional material such as a WHO vaccination card, and of course the biological sample box containing Scully’s DNA sample. An iconic prop for an iconic scene.

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Jan
19
2026

The Demijan collection

A new fan site is around: a showcase of prop replicas and costumes related to , by fellow fan and friend Demijan Omeragic! Among others, the Tulpa statuette from “Arcadia”, the Alien Bounty Hunter stiletto weapon, Krycek’s leather coat from “Patient X”, Frank Black’s iconic coat. More and more fans delve into the details of the making of the show, and two aspects are the props and costumes.

The props replicas is a world in of itself, with fans obsessively trying to get information out of screen captures and auctioned props to make their replicas as screen-accurate as possible. The costumes is another world, where fans either make replicas of their own or try to track down the exact commercial model (from 30+ years ago) that was used by the production. All good stuff, with great personal stories behind each item — I encourage you to look around!

https://www.alienstiletto.com

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Dec
31
2025

RIP art director Graeme Murray

We close the year with, unfortunately, another death in The X-Files family! Graeme Murray passed away earlier this year in April, in his native Vancouver. Together with John Bartley, who also passed away in 2025, he was one of the most important members of the crew that defined the visual style and quality of the show.

He is credited as art director for the first 3 seasons (starting from 1X06: Ghost in the Machine) and as production designer for seasons 4 and 5, plus as production designer for the pilot of Harsh Realm. One of his first credits was actually on John Carpenter’s The Thing, and interestingly his second episode was Ice — here’s an interview of the time with Glen Morgan being impressed with his sets!

His work along with colleagues Shirley Inget, Gary Allen and Greg Loewen got them a nomination for an Emmy in Outstanding Art Direction for a Series in 1996 (for 3X20: Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”); they would win the award in both 1997 (for 4X15: Memento Mori) and 1998 (for 5X06: The Post-Modern Prometheus).

Here are photos from the Vancouver Sun articles on those wins, taken from a 2024 exhibit in Graeme’s honor around the set of 3X19: Hell Money.

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Dec
23
2025

Interview: pilot director Robert Mandel

Happy solstice! Here is something out of the ordinary: an interview with Robert Mandel, the director of The X-Files pilot episode in 1993, by the people at the “Hey, That’s Me!” podcast. This is I think the only interview he has ever given on TXF, he is somebody who goes from project to project and doesn’t look back. The pilot is of course full of iconic moments and it is still very well-remembered. He only did the pilot but he sounds like somebody who could have been a good fit for the show long-term.

The episode runs like a live commentary on the episode itself. Some highlights:

  • Before, he did a lot of theatre, then AFI, short films, then features. This was his first TV experience, he wanted to do more movies.
  • A great experience overall. He and Carter were in complete agreement.
  • He had seen “Prime Suspect” [1991 TV movie with Helen Mirren, police investigation on serial killer with the lead dealing with workplace sexism], he discussed it with Carter and they wanted the same approach for TXF, low-key mystery, play it straight.
  • He came in when Mulder had been cast, they were still looking for a Scully.
  • Carter was more familiar with TV production than him. As writer and producer, Carter was on set every day, but the cooperation with Mandel went fine, there was trust.
  • He specifically remembers shooting a lot of dialogue under the cold and the rain, and Mulder talking about his sister, working with director of photography Tom Del Ruth [also only worked on the pilot].
  • Tight shooting schedule, hardly any time for rehearsals. Now pilots get more time.
  • They did 5-7 takes, tops; anything more than 3 takes was a lot already.
  • Carter liked people sticking to the script.
  • Carter found a lot of the set dressing himself, like Mulder’s wall. He worked a lot on the Pentagon set, for him it was key.
  • He and Carter showed the pilot to two executives. They expected or wanted more humor, they were looking at each other, trying to anticipate the audience reaction.
  • They really didn’t expect success, even after it came out.
  • He thinks Carter was genius keeping Mulder and Scully apart.
  • He has bumped into Duchovny since.

https://linktr.ee/heythatsmepod

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Dec
19
2025

Interview: Glen Morgan on Gold Derby

Another recent interview with Glen Morgan on The X-Files, this time text-based and not an audio podcast, on the website Gold Derby. Many points repeat the Strange Arrivals interview I covered recently, or other past interviews. Here are some tidbits that sound new to me:

On the monsters-of-the-week: “Chris would’ve done UFO episodes every week. The network didn’t want that. They wanted a monster show. I remember being in the office late at night — which was like a box; it was just a dump on the Fox lot — and we’re just sitting there trying to think of ideas.”

On 1X02: Squeeze: “Regarding the 30 years, my brother told me, “I think that you stole a Night Stalker. There was a thing where there was a guy who comes out every 30 or 50 years.” I’m like, “What?!” We loved that show with Darren McGavin. The episodes weren’t readily available until recently, so I don’t know if I lodged that in my subconscious. Chris had been in France, and he was fascinated by how they make foie gras, so that’s where it came about that Tooms ate livers.”

On 1X20: Tooms: “Skinner was named after my mom’s friend.”

On 1X07: Ice: “When I was a kid, there was an unknown movie called Report to the Commissioner, and at the end of the trailer, the two people were in an elevator with guns on each other. That image had a big effect on me — so let’s do that!”

On 1X12: Beyond the Sea: “we wanted to introduce [Scully] to the possibility of a paranormal event. We felt that the one thing that people might be open to is wanting to see a loved one that had moved along. The experience has a great deal of watching my mom when my grandfather passed away.”

On 2X14: Die Hand Die Verletzt: “John Bartley was the director of photography, and he lit that fourth act essentially with two flashlights, which were I think $3,000 each and the wire went up Duchovny’s coat. It was not done on TV where an entire act was just that level of darkness.”

On 4X03: Home: “My grandmother and grandfather, my mom’s parents, lived in Rochester, and they had a family next door who was a very nice family, maybe a little chaotic, named the Peacocks. I just thought, what a great name, and so we named [the “Home” family] the Peacocks.”

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