According to Deadline, Hulu will be the home of Ryan Coogler’s (Sinners, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) X-Files reboot that will star Danielle Deadwyler (The Harder They Fall, The Piano Lesson) and Jennifer Yale (Legion, The Producers) after the pilot was greenlit by the streamer. Deadwyler is set as the co-lead in the project, from Onyx Collective and 20th Television, Yale will also be serving as showrunner.
As per Deadline, Coogler will be writing and directing the pilot for the new X-Files. In it, two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents — one played by Deadwyler — form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena. The pilot order caps a three-year journey for the project, which falls under director Coogler’s five-year exclusive television deal with Disney, the parent company of Hulu, 20th TV and Onyx.
According to Deadline, Yale executive produces alongside The X-Files creator (The Love Gunmen, The After), Coogler, Sev Ohanian (Missing, Judas and the Black Messiah) and Zinzi Coogler (Anthem, Cred III) of Proximity Media. Coogler’s involvement was confirmed during a podcast appearance of his own last April. Carter revealed that he had spoken with Coogler, who was “going to remount The X-Files with a diverse cast,” adding, “He’s got his work cut out for him because we covered so much territory.”
“I’ve been excited about that for a long time, and I’m fired up to get back to it. Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f*cking scary,” he said via Deadline, adding, “We’re gonna try to make something really great and really be something for the real X-Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”
As per Deadline, during the same interview, Coogler stated that he had spoken with original X-Files star Gillian Anderson (The Fall, Tron: Ares) about the reboot, which took a while to come together due to the time spent on Sinners. With Coogler making The X-Files a priority post-Sinners, it gained steam over the past couple of months and Yale came on board as showrunner.