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Walden: “You know who we’re dealing with, do you think I can elaborate???” [joke on Carter!] “Gary and I both worked through the entire run of the X-Files. It was a great experience, we’ve maintained great relationships with creator Chris Carter, Gillian, and David. We’re very hopeful. It’s hard because they’re actors who are very busy. Chris has a lot going on. So it’s about finishing those conversations.” [FOX] “would not move forward without Chris.”

So no actual mention of reboot, and it’s very clear the original stars and the creator (not to mention co-owner!) are involved: technically, that’s called a revival — although many journalists added to the confusion already existing among media lingo by mentioning a reboot.

So what ushered this?

• Carter: The passage of time and perhaps his frustration with his new projects might have played a role for Carter to re. Surely the early discussions with FOX started before The After was cancelled, however Carter must have known about things going astray on The After for a several months and the cancellation might have accelerated things.
• FOX: with the passage of time, old executives who might have had grudges against Carter (especially around the time his series were getting cancelled, that of Harsh Realm in particular was bitter on Carter; and during the years he had a lawsuit with FOX) are leaving and are replaced by people who have worked with or appreciate Carter. Those who announced the revival, Dana Walden and Gary Newman, are “very friendly” with Carter and grew in the business together; as recently appointed co-chairmen of Fox Television Group and CEOs they plan to rebuild the ailing FOX and steer it into new territory.
• Precedents: the success of the 24: Live Another Day miniseries event, the announcement of the Twin Peaks revival
• Buzz during and after the 2013 San Diego Comic Con
• Buzz during 2014 and more recently: Kumail Nanjiani’s X-Files Files podcast, Gillian Anderson on the Nerdist podcast

How is this different from previous endless rumors and replies to nagging questions?

• This is FOX talking. The last reaction from FOX is a few months after the release of IWTB, saying that they were waiting to hear from Carter.
• It has been confirmed by both parties, FOX and Carter, that discussions are happening.
• The media coverage and buzz this passing mention of preliminary conversations has generated shows to FOX there is huge interest out there. They even asked William B Davis about it!

Anderson had, a few days before only, generated some buzz thanks to a Nerdist podcast that launched the twitter trend #XFiles2015. And a few days later Duchovny weighted in saying he’s “more than happy and excited to bring it back“, and “that it will happen sooner rather than later now. We’ll see what form, how many [episodes]. Certainly I can’t nor would I be interested in doing a full season. It will be in some kind of limited form. We’re all old, we don’t have the energy for a full season.” So the interest is definitely there.

All in all, nothing is set in stone, but something will be happening! How, when?

• With writing, pre-production, shooting, post-production ahead of us, we are looking at some time in 2016 — 8 years after IWTB!
• Carter will be involved. There have been many voices even within hardcore XF fans against him, but it’s his property and he has specific ideas about this. If there’s a reboot later that’s another story. But, apart from long-time collaborator and seasons 8-9 mythology co-creator Spotnitz, I’d hardly expect anybody else from the old writing team to be involved. It will either be entirely Carter/Spotnitz, or them plus a newcomer — especially if a reboot is in the minds of FOX.- Short seasons are more and more the norm: the writing is tight, the shooting schedule is short for the actors, the marketing is focused. Let’s expect a 6-12 episode season.
• XF3 would always have been about the alien colonization mythology. But even with a mini-series, the shortened length wouldn’t allow for a back-and-forth between independent episodes and mythology episodes. I expect a single story, cut in parts.
• It would make good sense for Fox to hold on to the remastered series in HD and use the release of a BluRay boxset as promotional material for the new event/series if/when that happens.
• Schedules have to be aligned — a burdensome development could come up if the stars are contractually tied to a specific network and can’t appear in many networks simultaneously.- Given the pop culture importance of the brand name, it’s easy to imagine Fox wanting to produce more than a one-off event and thinking ahead about continuing the franchise. It’s possible that this event would serve as both a farewell to the old characters and as an introduction to a younger group of characters that could be used in a re-launch of the series: the “old” stars are perfectly capable of holding their own, but at or approaching their fifties the most likely option is that they would form only part of the cast which would include younger actors as well. So this could be the last Mulder & Scully X-Files we see — with a reboot down the road.

The comics: bridge or alternate universe?

Meanwhile, the comics Season 10 is continuing and actually coming to an end — earlier than I expected — with #25, expected for June 2015, and with the last collected volume (Vol.5), expected for September-October 2015. However, it’s already more or less officially confirmed that after a break there will be a Season 11! With about 10,000 (physical) issues sold each month and in the Top 10 of IDW’s sales, the X-Files is a success for IDW, along with good reviews and the low production costs associated with comic books. Hence all the side publications: we’ve already had a Lone Gunmen spin-off, an origin story, an Annual and a Christmas special, and reprints of all the older Topps comics, and there’s a table board game, a short story (prose) collection and a Millennium arc to hit stores in 2015 — and potentially more coming, as editor Denton J. Tipton has said that despite a break between XF seasons there will be XF-related material coming out every month. And it’s quite obvious by now that all this is done with just Carter’s permission but essentially without any of his creative input. If it starts around the end of this year, another 25-issue season would take us well into 2017.

X-Files — and Millennium? — comics still have a long future.

However, with the new developments of an on-screen XF revival, where do these comics fit into the picture? Carter was supportive but ambiguous (how odd?!) on whether he thought of them as canon. There are three options:

• Comics ignored: As excellent as they are, it’s hard to think that FOX executives and the creative team would “constrain” themselves with comics — they might not even constrain themselves with the live series, resulting in inconsistencies! — and there’s been a recent precedent with a much longer lived Extended Universe, with the “de-canonization” of nearly everything Star Wars since the 1980s! So the comics would continue, sadly as an alternate universe.
• Comics taken into account: Carter and Harris agree on the comics orientation and make the events of the comics nicely dovetail into the revival event, like season 5 and FTF. Great! Although, how the schedules of the comics publication (with Season 11!) and the revival align would be a challenge.
• Comics are neutral: Comics and revival follow their own lives, with the revival event airing during the Season 11 publication, but they end up not contradicting each other. Joe Harris is free to complexify his mythology as long as it doesn’t touch upon whatever the revival will touch upon, and fans have to fanwank events in a chronological order.
• Comics are the source: A fourth option is that the mini-series becomes a live adaptation or is partly inspired by the comics — unlikely, but who knows? Joe Harris is also involved in feature film-making!

Even if you are bitter from the later seasons and/or IWTB… there are some exiting times ahead!

PS: I wrote most of this article days after The After was cancelled; I only had to change few things to include the FOX announcement! The XF revival has been preparing in the background throughout 2014!…