Six more Chris Carter interviews! As he is out promoting his new Director’s Cut of IWTB, out on 14/August. Obviously there is significant overlap with the two in-depth interviews I covered already (Hey Danny and Conspiracy). Here I only cover the new elements.
Main new points: the new Director’s Cut is actually shorter than the theatrical run; among the cuts are the Mulder-Scully romantic and emotional bits, which were rather forced on Carter; we get a pitch for his next movie “Queens For A Day”; and he thinks Scully at least and eventually Mulder will appear in the Ryan Coogler TXF project.
It sounds to me that this new Director’s Cut is all about the Monster-of-the-Week, detached from any other ‘superfluous’ elements that might link it to the larger story of the show, like the Mulder-Scully relationship: it is a version of the movie made to attract new viewers. In the interviews below we learn some specific cuts that were made; but apart from the obvious ones, Carter has tightened the whole movie to make it run shorter and has added new music. It’s the latter I am more interested in, to get a new sense of the flow and ‘feel’ of the movie and understand if it works better for me.
The X-Cast
[Context from Tony: Tony was sent a copy of the Director’s Cut that he saw in preparation for the interview. As a consequence, the interview was embargoed until today 12/August. Disney also specified not to discuss the new Coogler project with Carter. This embargo fits with reviews of the new cut, which have now started to come out.]
- “I felt that Fox didn’t really promote the movie.”
- “We had about the third of the budget” compared to the first movie.
[The reported budgets were 65 million dollars for FTF and 35 million dollars for IWTB; a third of FTF would be about 22 M$; could it be that the 35 M$ figure included both production and marketing?]
- “We didn’t lay as heavily into the Mulder-Scully relationship, we stayed heavy on the Frankenstein story element.”
- Cuts: several of the romantic aspects and any mention of William; but there is a reference to Samantha.
- “Those were marks that we were hitting for the executives, I never that this was exactly right, this is more of the scary movie that I wanted to make.”
- “With the two reboots we got a whole lot of Mulder and Scully, so going back to it I didn’t think we didn’t necessarily need as much.”
[This is as straightforward as Carter will ever get: he is uncomfortable with the Mulder-Scully romance, and moves towards that direction are forced on him. He has spoken in the past about not wanting to “domesticate” M&S, and these cuts must be to avoid these things. This is certainly going to be extremely unpopular among a big part of the remaining fandom. As for myself, I did think some bed jokes were cringe; however, they were together, it’s pointless to make their relationship even more ambiguous, this even makes the movie incomprehensible as there already were viewers who thought that M&S were not living together.]
- Cut: exposition dialogue in the scene travelling in the car with Father Joe.
- Cut: the George W Bush photo moment.
- “Anything that felt extraneous or where we were goofing around got cut out.”
- “At the same time I hope I didn’t cut out things that people liked about the movie.”
- Added: Agent Whitney (Amanda Peet) actually gets impaled when she falls down that shaft.
- Music changes: no main theme melody at the start, it’s directly more ominous, and it’s different throughout. Jeff Charbonneau did all that.
- Addition of the [Patsy Cline] song “I fall to pieces”, which is ironic.
- Added: a scene with Scully crying.
- In memoriam in the end credits: it used to be only Randy Stone, now it includes Nicky Aycox, Mark Snow, John Bartley…
“Queens For A Day”: “It is a horror fable.” “It’s about someone who time travels and goes back and has to walk in someone else’s shoes.” [This sounds straight out of “The Twilight Zone”! It can be fun.]
He has never thought about doing the same Director’s Cut approach for FTF — if so, he would bring in Rob Bowman, Dan Sackheim and Frank Spotnitz.
The Pop Culture Principle
[Interview by Millennium fan Troy Foreman.]
- “I always felt there was a big push to lay into the romantic relationship between Mulder and Scully. It always got in the way of the scary story for me. I tried to balance those things better.”
- “There was some concern that it’s coming out in as it were competition with Ryan Cooger’s reboot and that’s not the case, it’s coming out months in advance, at least. I didn’t want these two things get confused.”
- “I don’t know what the future holds. I’m really anxious to see the Coogler take on the show and how it will effect or not effect my ideas about going forward with Mulder and Scully.” “I don’t know how one thing will influence another.”
- Troy: IWTB is very “Millennium”-like and you could substitute M&S with Frank Black and Emma Hollis. Carter: “I never thought of that! Yeah, it’s got a Millennium vibe to it. That’s astute.” [I remember the summer of 2008 and in anticipation of the release some were hoping for a Frank Black cameo! IWTB is so Millenniumistic, it’s wild that the creator does not realize these connections when they are so obvious to some viewers!]
- At some point Carter asks his assistant something about the music. His assistant can be heard saying that they removed the emotional music, but everything they added in was from Mark Snow. [Some of Mark Snow’s best lyrical work was in tracks like “The Surgery”, it’s a shame this is toned down. The tone of the new cut is pure horror.]
- He is going to be in Philefest 2028 in Vancouver.
https://thepcprinciple.com/interview-chris-carter
On The Red Carpet
(Short 2 min interview)
Carter’s favourite episode: “5X06: The Post-Modern Prometheus” [More Frankenstein!]
The Hollywood Reporter
- “Unlike most director’s cuts, I didn’t throw in everything but the kitchen sink. It’s actually shorter than the original.”
- “My feeling is that the movie became a relationship heavy movie. The scares were second to that. I wanted to go back and put in the scares.”
- “When the original was released, I went out and promoted it. The studio didn’t promote it, so it I felt it was never really seen by a wider audience.”
- “We made it for less than $25 million.” [That small figure again. Much less than the reported $35 million at the time. With that measure, it was a box office success!]
About continuing the story beyond season 11: “There’s a point at which you need to deliver on a promise. And I wanted to deliver more than the promise. I wanted to give them what they least expected. I know that sounds somewhat confusing, but I had a bigger plan and it all made sense. It will make sense, and so hang with me.” [“Deliver on a promise”: this is 2002 all over again. And 2008. And 2016. And 2018. See earlier interviews on theorizing on all of this.]
“The thing that was unexpected, but now highly anticipated, is the Ryan Coogler reboot. I don’t want to do anything to compete with that. I don’t want to do anything to get in the way of that. I don’t want to play off of that. I want to continue to tell and finish the story arc that I have in mind. That said, I’m anxiously awaiting his version. My name is on it as executive producer, but I have done exactly nothing. I am, like everyone else out there, excited about what it may be.”
Parade
He cut the romance, but he also cut some of the gore. “There actually was a lot more of that. I cut it down a little bit because there’s a point at which it gets overplayed, and I didn’t want that. A little went a long way for me.”
“It’s always Scully’s movie. The X-Files wouldn’t have succeeded without Scully. If it were just Mulder poking around in the dark, it would have been only so interesting. Scully, with her science background and her belief that science can explain everything, that is the beating heart of the show. Mulder just takes her on the wildest ride that she never imagined, and us as well. So it’s Scully’s movie until it’s Mulder’s movie.”
“Queens For A Day”: it’s “about a very flawed person who has to go back and live life in someone else’s shoes. If that sounds a little like A Christmas Carol, it’s not by mistake.”
Polygon
“At least Gillian, I think, is going to appear in the Coogler version. And I’m assuming David will too, so you will see Mulder and Scully there.”
[As suspected, this explains why Gillian has been saying so many positive things about Coogler. Carter drops this bombshell in the middle of a random interview. Does he not realize he is messing with Disney’s marketing, who have wanted to keep this a secret? Or does he fully realize, and cares little about whatever version of TXF is not his own? In any case, this is going to be interesting!]
Does Coogler’s project make his continuation more complicated? “I don’t know. When I see it, I’ll know, and so will the Fox executives. They’ll have a sense if these things are going to be in competition or if they are going to be complementary.”
“I would love to do either another reboot, or another movie. My ideas going forward are big ideas. Whether they’re a TV series or a movie, I don’t know, but I have big plans.”
[Very clearly, with this Director’s Cut and the press around it, Carter is attempting to draw attention back to him and his future for the show, he is trying to tell to Disney not to forget him, and that when this ‘craze’ with Coogler’s side project will pass, he will still be there to offer his original take. Let’s see if Disney will listen, and if Anderson will be willing. These are big ifs.]
