Ryan Coogler is moving ahead with his reboot of The X-Files, but the big question, at least for me, is whether it will connect to the original series. Gillian Anderson, who played Dana Scully, recently said she’s read the pilot script for The X-Files reboot, and it’s “really good,” leading some to believe she could return in some capacity, but what about David Duchovny?
During an interview with THR, Duchovny was asked whether he had read the pilot script. “No, I haven’t,” he said. “I’ve spoken to Ryan, and I have a general sense of what it is, but I haven’t read the script.“
As for whether he will appear, Duchovny merely said, “There have been talks about certain things, but there’s nothing concrete at this point.” He did add that he’s not certain whether or not his character even exists in the new show.
“I wish them luck,” he said. “It’s a great frame that Chris Carter came up with all those years ago — a believer and a nonbeliever tackling these mysteries. I always thought it was endlessly generative. It really comes down to the writers’ room for me. Because we had great writers. We had Vince Gilligan, the Morgan brothers, Howard Gordon, Darin Morgan and others. We were blessed to have a writers’ room that could generate 20 to 25 movie ideas. I’m not going to insult something like The Pitt, because that’s great television. But The X-Files was a movie idea every week.“
He continued, “So I hope Ryan doesn’t have to do 25 [episodes] and only has to do 10 or 12. And I hope he’s got great writers, because that’s really the key to making that show work.“
Coogler is writing and directing the pilot for The X-Files reboot, which will star Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) and Himesh Patel (Yesterday) as two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents who form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.
Should David Duchovny (and/or Gillian Anderson) appear on The X-Files reboot?