Remember The X-Files? That grainy, paranoid, late-night weird-fest that made us all stare harder at ceiling lights and shadowy corners? Yeah, it's coming back. And the man behind it is none other than Sinners director Ryan Coogler, who casually confirmed that this long-dormant reboot is finally his “immediately next” project.
No press release. No poster drop. Just a low-key podcast mention. Classic Coogler.
“I'm working on X-Files,” he told Last Podcast on the Left, sounding like someone who just saw a UFO but promised to keep it chill. “If we don't mess it up, some of the episodes might just scare the crap out of people.”
Here's the uncomfortable truth:
Rebooting The X-Files isn't just risky—it's borderline cursed. Between the legacy of Chris Carter's original and the lukewarm 2018 revival, this is Hollywood's version of playing with a haunted Ouija board.
But Coogler? He's not just anyone. He's the guy who made us care about Adonis Creed, turned Wakanda into a cultural milestone, and just dropped Sinners—a genre-bending horror thriller currently flirting with a $40M+ opening weekend. If anyone can thread the needle between sci-fi weirdness and social relevance, it's him.
And make no mistake: relevance is the key word here.
According to Carter himself (in a 2023 interview with CBC), Coogler's pitch centers on diversifying the cast and updating the mythos for a post-pandemic, conspiracy-laced, algorithmically haunted world. Think less “cigarette-smoking man in a trench coat” and more “deepfake truthers and AI surveillance states.”
It's not just timely. It's terrifying.
But here's where things get hairy:
We still don't know if Mulder or Scully—or any of the original cast—will return. It's been six years since their last outing, and the fandom's patience wore thin somewhere between the clunky 2016 revival and that bizarre “Mulder-Scully-were-actually-aliens” twist that almost happened. (Look it up. It was real.)
This isn't the first time Hollywood's tried to resuscitate cult IP with a fresh face. Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone reboot in 2019 had a similar pitch: modernize the paranoia. But it fizzled under the weight of expectation and inconsistent execution. Even HBO's Watchmen—as brilliant as it was—felt like lightning in a bottle.
So the question is:
Can Coogler do what so many can't—make a reboot that matters?
If Sinners is any clue, the answer might be yes. The film's early reviews call it “stylish,” “deeply unsettling,” and “unexpectedly human.” Not bad for a guy already balancing Black Panther 3 on his plate. His Proximity Media deal with Disney has kept him close to the studios holding X-Files rights, so the infrastructure's there. But still—logistics are one thing. Legacy is another.
This isn't just about rebooting a show. It's about challenging what sci-fi TV even looks like in 2025.
Imagine The X-Files filtered through Get Out's lens—where aliens are still real, but so is systemic surveillance. Where truth isn't just “out there,” it's buried under disinformation, TikTok spirals, and federal gaslighting.
Scary? Definitely.
Necessary? Maybe more than ever.
