Hulu‘s revival of The X-Files is moving forward and the project has cast its first co-lead.
Danielle Deadwyler has landed one of the two coveted starring roles in the series.
In addition, Sinners filmmaker Ryan Coogler — who has long been attached to the show — is now confirmed to both write and direct the pilot, which has been officially greenlit.
The new show’s official description: “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.”
This logline is slightly different from the premise of Fox’s original, which debuted in 1993 and ran for nine seasons and spawned two movies. The original series kicked off with Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) being assigned to the paranormal division to help debunk true believer Agent Fox Mulder’s (David Duchovny) work.
The show’s original showrunner, Chris Carter, will be a non-writing executive producer on the series. Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler, who are Coogler’s partners at their Proximity Media banner, are also non-writing EPs on the show.
Coogler is a great get for Hulu, with the Black Panther director red hot after delivering last year’s most celebrated surprise hit with Sinners, which is nominated for 16 Oscars.
Deadwyler has appeared in The Woman in the Yard and Netflix’s adaptation of The Piano Lesson (and earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for best supporting actress for the latter). She is also set to appear in HBO’s upcoming third season of Euphoria and star in HBO’s upcoming comedy series Rooster.
The X-Files will be produced by Onyx Collective and 20th Television and is returning amid a widespread surge of interest in aliens and UFOs. The topic has received congressional attention with several hearings devoted to UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), recent headlines with presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump weighing in on the topic, and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film, Disclosure Day, having a premise that sounds straight out of The X-Files.
