Ryan Coogler's ‘The X-Files’ Reboot Looks Sick. Here's Everything We Know

Any ‘90s kid would likely put The X-Files close to the top of their list of TV shows too sacred to touch, even in these remake, reboot and sequel-mad times. Because how in the hell could you do better than Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny taking on a weekly buffet of monsters, aliens, and shadowy conspiracies?One answer: By hiring the director (and Oscar-winning screenwriter) of Sinners, Ryan Coogler—recently anointed by Vulture as the second-most-powerful filmmaker on the planet, second only to Christopher Nolan, which, yeah, fair enough—to make it.The Coogler Factor has made the upcoming The X-Files reboot one of the buzziest shows on the long-term docket. It's not just that Coogler is one of the most highly-regarded auteurs out there—he's also a day-one fan of the Chris Carter original, telling the Happy Sad Confused podcast that it's “what I used to watch with my mom, bro… It's one of the most beautiful American television shows ever made.” Appropriately, he seems to have a fan's finger on the pulse, with an understanding of what made the best monster-of-the-week episodes really sing: “Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really fucking scary,” he told Last Podcast on the Left in 2025, per Variety.The series' pilot reportedly wrapped earlier this month. Himesh Patel, who can currently be seen beard-mogging everybody else in Christopher Nolan's box-office behemoth The Odyssey as Matt Damon's weary right-hand warrior, is set to star alongside indie favorite Danielle Deadwyler, who earned much awards buzz for her lead in 2022's Till (and previously starred opposite Patel some years ago in HBO's postapocalyptic drama Station Eleven.)Purists can relax: Rather than playing a rebooted Mulder and Scully, Patel and Deadwyler are coming in as a brand-new pair of FBI agents, tasked with investigating the paranormal goings-on in America's sleepiest towns and creepiest backwoods. Patel confirmed as much in a recent interview with The Direct. “Myself and Danielle Deadwyler are playing completely new characters, and we just wrapped on the pilot,” he said. “If we do get to do more… We'll see where we go from there.”Elsewhere, Coogler has spoken about the potential for Anderson to return in some capacity, acknowledging that they've spoken. “She's incredible, and fingers crossed there,” he told Variety. Duchovny told The Hollywood Reporter in April that he has also spoken to Coogler about the show, wishing the director luck. Whether or not Mulder might return to help solve one last interplanetary mystery remains classified. “There have been talks about certain things, but there's nothing concrete at this point,” he said.So, there you have it: the Ryan Coogler X-Files show is coming soon. Case closed. Right? Well, perhaps not quite. Entertainment blog rumors abound that the series is yet to be green-lit beyond its now-filmed pilot, which was apparently shot on 65mm film—aka the one used for IMAX —by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the Oscar-winning cinematographer on Sinners. (Shooting a TV show on large-format film stock would be highly unconventional, although Euphoria's third season exposed more than one million feet of celluloid in both 65mm and 35mm format, making it, per Kodak, “the first TV series to shoot significant volumes of large format 65mm film.”)According to World of Reel, this might actually be because Coogler wants to turn his allegedly two-hour-long pilot into a feature film and show it in theaters. It certainly tracks: you might recall that the director went hard for the theatrical experience with Sinners, sharing a PSA-style video breaking down the movie's various big screen formats. Nonetheless, park that one in rumorville for now.No word on when the nü-X-Files will hit screens yet, but hey: there are plenty of cases to revisit in the original show, conveniently streaming in full on Hulu.This story originally appeared in British GQ.