‘X-Files’ to Return as Six-Episode Miniseries

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Photo by Gage Skidmore. CC by 2.0/Wikimedia Commons.

Wanting to believe apparently works: Fox has announced the return of The X-Files 13 years after the original series’ finale and seven after the most recent X-Files movie. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will once again play Fox Muldur and Dana Scully for a six-episode limited series. Production on the new run will begin this summer, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and a premiere date will be announced later.

“We had the privilege of working with Chris on all nine seasons of The X-Files ”“ one of the most rewarding creative experiences of our careers ”“ and we couldn’t be more excited to explore that incredible world with him again,” Fox TV chairmen and CEOs Dana Walden and Gary Newman said in their own joint statement. “The X-Files was not only a seminal show for both the studio and the network, it was a worldwide phenomenon that shaped pop culture ”“ yet remained a true gem for the legions of fans who embraced it from the beginning. Few shows on television have drawn such dedicated fans as The X-Files, and we’re ecstatic to give them the next thrilling chapter of Mulder and Scully they’ve been waiting for.”

Last summer, Duchovny told Rolling Stone that he was still holding on to hope for some kind of X-Files revival, framed around the idea of making a follow-up to the 2008 film The X-Files: I Want to Believe. “I would always want to do it,” he said. “I wish we’d done more already. I wish the second one did better business. I think it did OK business, but not the kind of business where you get to do another one right away.”

At the time, Duchovny chalked up the possibility of a return to interest from Fox. The other obstacle was wrangling together his coworkers. “Chris has got a new show,” he said, referring to Carter’s since-canceled Amazon pilot The After. “Gillian’s working. I’m working. It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy. And I never think it’s done. I’d say, it’s never done until one of us dies ”“ until one of us three is gone.”

In the near future, Duchovny will appear on the NBC series Aquarius, in which he plays a cop in pursuit of a murderer who turns out to be Charles Manson. And earlier this month, Variety reported that Anderson’s British crime drama The Fall had been renewed for a third season.