Chris Carter is “Anxiously Awaiting” Ryan Coogler’s New THE X-FILES Just Like the Rest of Us

The truth is out there again, and even the guy who created The X-Files doesn’t know exactly what’s coming.

It’s a pretty great time to be an X-Files fan. Series creator Chris Carter is returning to the franchise with a new director’s cut of the second movie, now titled The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn, while Ryan Coogler is developing a new X-Files pilot for Hulu.

There’s even a new LEGO set floating around for fans who want Mulder and Scully investigating paranormal activity from the comfort of a plastic brick office.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the franchise’s latest revival is that Carter is choosing to experience Coogler’s version the same way fans will. He doesn’t want spoilers.

Coogler’s X-Files project hasn’t received a series order yet, but Carter is already attached as an executive producer. Don’t assume that means he’s hovering over the production or giving notes on how the mythology should work, though. According to Carter, his involvement has basically stopped at having his name in the credits.

“I’m anxiously awaiting his version,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “My name is on it as executive producer, but I have done exactly nothing. I am, like everyone else out there, excited about what it may be.”

Carter has taken that approach pretty seriously. He hasn’t even read the script. “My choice was not to read the script, because I wanted to watch it like everyone else,” Carter said.

That’s actually a pretty cool position for the creator of The X-Files to be in. Carter spent decades shaping this universe, its conspiracies, monsters, aliens, government cover-ups, and the relationship between Mulder and Scully.

Now he gets to sit back and see what another filmmaker can pull out of the concept without knowing where the story is headed, and Coogler is one hell of a talented filmmaker to hand the keys to.

While Carter is giving Coogler room to build his own version, he hasn’t completely closed the book on Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as Dana Scully and Fox Mulder.

Carter’s upcoming The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn, which arrives on Hulu and Disney+ August 14, is another return to the world he created.

The original series wrapped its initial run in 2002 before eventually coming back for seasons 10 and 11, and Carter still has unfinished business connected to where that revival left its characters.

Specifically, there’s the rather enormous development involving Scully at the end of Season 11. “There was a big revelation at the end of the season finale in season 11 that Scully is pregnant,” Carter said to THR.

“Some people were horrified, outraged. They hated me. It was big … This is taken on the chin because I have a bigger idea in mind. I think that time will tell.”

Whatever Carter’s bigger idea might be, he isn’t planning to pursue it while Coogler is trying to get his new X-Files off the ground.

“I don’t want to do anything to compete with that,” he said. “I don’t want to do anything to get in the way of that. I don’t want to play off of that. I want to continue to tell and finish the story arc that I have in mind.”

So Carter apparently still knows where he wants Mulder and Scully’s story to go, but he’s willing to keep those plans tucked away while Coogler takes his shot.

That makes this new chapter of The X-Files especially interesting. Coogler isn’t simply walking into a dead franchise waiting to be resurrected. Carter is still thinking about these characters and has ideas he’d like to explore someday, yet he’s intentionally creating space for someone else to reinterpret the property.

For now, Carter gets to join the rest of us wondering exactly what Ryan Coogler’s X-Files will look like. Considering Coogler’s track record, the possibilities are pretty exciting.

And the fact that the man who created Mulder, Scully, and decades worth of paranormal conspiracies deliberately refused to read the script because he wants to be surprised makes the eventual premiere even more fun.