Ryan Coogler to Write and Direct New ‘X-Files’ Reboot

Since its debut in 1993, The X-Files has never gone away for more than a few years. No matter how many times it get canceled or one of its stars temporarily departed, it kept coming back in some form or another. After nine seasons through the early 2000s, it got a second movie in 2008 (The X-Files: I Want to Believe; the first movie aired while the show was still ongoing on the Fox network), then a tenth season in 2016, followed by an eleventh in 2018.

All of those X-Files episodes and movies centered on the adventures of FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and some of their associates at the FBI as they investigated unsolved, typically supernatural cases. (Aliens! Black oil! Cigarette smoking men! Oh my!)

Now the show is coming back with a new cast, and a new central creative. Ryan Coogler, the hugely successful director of Black Panther and Sinners, is slated to write and direct the pilot for a brand new series of The X-Files. Jennifer Yale is the showrunner on the show. The X-Files franchise creator Chris Carter serves as an executive producer.

READ MORE: TV Revivals So Bad They Ruined They Original Show

Here is the new X-Files’ official synopsis:

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.

One of the two vastly different FBI agents has already been cast as well: Danielle Deadwyler, who has previously been seen in Carry-On and The Woman in the Yard. 

This is not the first time we’ve heard about this project. Chris Carter, publicly mentioned back in 2023 that Coogler was interested in making his own X-Files reboot with a new cast. Given the conspiracy-minded world we live in now, the show only seems more timely these days.

Or maybe it will be boring to watch people investigating mass conspiracies in a world where people now take those for a given? It will be interesting to see how the show’s themes are received in 2026 — and how Coogler updates them for the modern world.

The pilot for Coogler’s X-Files was ordered by Hulu.