The X-Files are back, not on your television screen (thankfully), but in an all-new, apparently eagerly anticipated, big(ger) budgeted feature-length film. Creator/producer/writer Chris Carter is back, as are David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprising their roles as FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, respectively. Also on hand was Frank Spotniz, series writer, producer, and co-writer of the new, as yet untitled (or un-subtitled) sequel. The Wonder-Con audience eagerly cheered the four members of the panel. All four were in town after working yesterday on the still-in-production sequel.
Not surprisingly for an audience packed with X-Files fans, the trailer met with enthusiastic approval. Trailer riffed on the The Thing From Another World], something under the ice, a white-haired man in eyeglasses (Billy Connolly) leads an FBI team to an isolated location near a farmhouse. The agents set up a perimeter while the white-haired man digs frantically in the snow. What he’s looking for and what he finds remains a mystery. Even more of a mystery is what’s at stake, how Mulder and Scully are involved, and what, if anything, has changed in their relationship since the X-Files went off the air six years ago.
As frustratingly little as the trailer gave away, the panel gave away even less. Carter and Spotniz seemed to indicate that the script goes away from the alien/government conspiracy storyline that sustained The X-Files for most of its nine-year run. Instead, they opted for what one fan/questioner in the audience dismissively referred to as a “monster of the week” storyline. That might be true, but as any X-Files fan can attest, some of The X-Files better episodes had little or nothing to do with the alien/government conspiracy storyline (referred to as the show’s “mythology” by fans and critics).
The question on almost everyone’s minds is why a sequel and why now? After all, it’s been six years after the end of the series and nine years since The X-Files: Fight the Future made its one and only appearance on theater screens. Fans turned out for Fight the Future, but non-fans didn’t, at least not in enough numbers to make Fight the Future a major box office hit or a sequel a done deal. Carter sidestepped the question, saying only that the story he and Spotniz put together will scare the pants off of audience members and that audiences would see Mulder and Scully in a wholly new way. Later, Carter acknowledged that Duchovny played a major role in kick-starting the sequel, as were executives at Twentieth Century Fox (who told Carter it was “now or never”).
The questions inevitably turned to the acting side. Duchovny and Anderson were asked about re-acclimating to their now iconic roles. Both said it was much harder than anticipated, with Anderson claiming it took her 48 hours before she felt comfortable in Scully’s skin and thus gave bad-to-mediocre performances over those two days. Duchovny asked for specifics (as in, which scenes), but Anderson passed on answering. Interestingly enough, Duchovny said his most difficult scenes weren’t performing in action-oriented set pieces, but in the smaller, make-or-break character moments he shared with Anderson and her character.
To the delight of X-Files fans, Carter confirmed that series’ composer Mark Snow will return to score the sequel. While he didn’t have to say it, he seemed to confirm that anyone else would have led to a loss of good will among X-Files fans. Although she doesn’t appear in the trailer or, if she did, fleetingly, Carter confirmed that Amanda Peet appears in the sequel as a FBI Special Agent Dakota Whitney.
As for a sequel to the sequel (Carter didn’t speak of it in terms of a trilogy), that all depends, of course, on how well the still-untitled sequel does at the box office in July, but Carter and Spotniz seemed enthusiastic about venturing back into the X-Files universe and telling more stories, especially now that they don’t have to contend with the grind associated with working on a weekly television series.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
brovi says:
A NAZI HOLLYWOOD ‘X-FILE 2′ - FOR REAL
“I’M TIRED OF FIGHTING IT.”
(GILLIAN ANDERSON FEB, 2008)
[ Reality lies behind the camera not in front.]
CONWONDER 2008 ‘X-FILES 2′ - BROKEN PANEL -
A+ ANDERSON HOLDS INTEGRITY

The upcoming movie ‘X-Files 2′ hype was thrown out to the somewhat excited San Francisco fans at the WonderCon 2008 event last week. Notably, Gillian Anderson was in true Anderson form. Resistance.
The ‘horse and pony act’ opened with Spotnitz as the first to be introduced. He then entered from stage left. Carter’s introduction came next. He then made his entrance. Both uneventfully took their seats side by side at the end of a long table which stretched the length of the stage, facing the Sci-fi audience. The noisy room was rowdy and steady with moderate applause and shout-outs.
Anderson then suddenly took the stage without being announced and it was clear that it wasn’t by accident. She refused to be heeled onto the stage. The house exploded into riotous appreciation. In the deafening confusion Duchvony hastily slipped onto the stage at a half run coming up from behind her. The roaring crowd then noticeably muted ever so slightly a notch or two. Anderson’s stride across the stage was relaxed with calm radiance looking neither left nor right and she seemed almost oblivious to the malay going on around her. Noticing the drop in the sound level she whipped a sharp glance over her shoulder, almost flinching at Duchvony’s rushing in on her unexpectedly.
A bit startled but not surprised, in a spontaneous split second an expression snapped across her face in the direction of his feet. She was less than amused. Simultaneously she remained unruffled, and gracious to a point, just short of striking out in reflex. The stalking Californication celebrity looked done in and unkempt while taking his questionable fill of her thunder. Duchvony pretended not to notice as he found his way to his chair and nervously gaged the room while mechanically acting his jacket onto the back of his chair.
His ‘grasping at straws’ entrance correlates famously and congruently with his kind of professional ethics. This could be the sum of his inner working dynamics with Anderson as a whole then and now, a microcosm or summation of their decade old rift; a palpably weird and tense moment. His ‘X-Files 2′ stage debut was an embarrassing and blatantly awkward moment, tripping them both up. It immediately brought back 2002 flashbacks of Duchovny’s past intolerable uneasiness with Anderson’s popularity overshadowing his own, his then demanding higher pay, and then his exiting from the TV X-Files first (knowing she wisely had resigned.) Not much has changed between GA & DD.
As a prelude to the panel event: For those who may not know, old Hollywood has stalked and threatened Anderson with this project for years. Consequently throughout the panel discussions Anderson displayed a near morose demeanor and tone. She mixed it up with an occasional pouty lip of pointed displeasure. She at one point interjected a show stopping (literally) comment relating to them wanting to fire her during the X-Files TV series. More importantly, her absolute refrain from ever endorsing the movie spoke volumes.
This holds true especially for those who are familiar with the facts. Old corp. Hollywood, along with their X-Files projects, has a tarnished and documented history. It’s extremely oppressive. There’s no love lost between them and Anderson. This coincides with the hostilities injected and lack of support from coworkers on the set of the TV X-Files, in Anderson’s fight against departmental injustices relating to women’s rights for working mothers. All the boys on the WonderCon 2008 ‘X-Files 2′ panel showed the world precisely were they stood (or rather sat) in 2002 when Gillian Anderson stood up for herself, more importantly for her first newborn child and for women’s rights.
Taking the bizarre further, corp. Hollywood’s suspiciously handpicked members [or should we say paid actors] of the audience and/or questions stunk of methodical foul play. On average, Carter and old Hollywood’s ‘X-Files 2′ marketing voice and promoter Duchvony received the sophisticated beautifully scripted glorifying questions. Anderson got the star-struck fan on behavioral meds spewing garble.
IN EXAMPLE (to paraphrase):
‘David haven’t you almost got your Doctorate Degree and you’re famous. Tell us how you do it! Can you please give us your secret?’
‘Gillian I’ve watched you since I was three …garble, garble …and X-Files series …garble, garble …I wuvvy you …goobby, wooby, oobby! …ooh!’
The entire ‘X-Files 2′ broken WonderCon panel affair [Spotnitz, Carter, Anderson and Duchvony] was captured on video and spread widely on the internet.
The unedited full version revealed such a truthful state of affairs indeed. It highly emphasized the reality that this group is so sadly lacking in mutual comradery and continuity that the video immediately disappeared off the net. “Sorry video no longer available” started popping up everywhere and rightly so [it's no longer to be found.]
This WonderCon panel’s dirty laundry of bygone X-Files days captured digitally said it all. No amount of minute Hollywood office congeniality and/or smiles, backhanded jesting (mostly directed at GA by DD to include an oral copulation jab), or poses for the still shot could ever hope to mask the disjointed lameness of this forced gathering of people.
The WonderCon panel video was killed within 24 hrs and replaced with a flood of -the same- half dozen giant beautiful photos showing friendly smiles now plastered all over the net.
These smiley-face mili-seconds caught digitally were carefully chosen and constructed as ‘real time’ to misrepresent the truth of the moment and paint a facade of solidarity and success. Not even the trick photography of old Hollywood can put that wonderland back together again. Overall this ‘X-Files 2′ group of broken pieces was an example of forced association at its best.
There’s little doubt that this ‘X-Files 2′ movie sequel has all the indicators of cheap graphics, a lot of Connolly and Peet, a little of Duchovny and just a hint of substance, Anderson. Oh, and a substantial amount of public rip off.$ It should give old Hollywood some travel money though, for about a year. Old corp. Hollywood is done in Hollywood CA and it seems they’re heading to Africa.
As the biggest diamond merchants in the world, their top executives are already setup in Africa’s diamond fields, trying to get us into another fine mess no doubt. We can only hope that the general public won’t be interested in supplying a war in Africa so these giant corp. conglomerates can capture their blood diamond market like they captured society’s arts/media.