The X-Files Being Reopened?
Posted at 9:14 AM (PST) on Friday, February 3, 2006

The Ausiello Report
TV Guide
February 3, 2006

The X-Files Being Reopened?

When it comes to the long-awaited second X-Files feature film, the truth is out there — and it ain't good. The latest setback? Franchise creator Chris Carter recently filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox over the show's profits.

"Everyone's [movie] deal is done — mine, David Duchovny's and Gillian Anderson's — but Chris' is not," says former X-Files producer Frank Spotnitz, who cooked up the sequel's story with Carter. "And I can't imagine that his deal will get completed until this legal dispute is resolved. My hope is that we can make this movie while people still care." (Carter declined to be interviewed for this story.)

The actress formerly known as Scully still cares, but her patience is wearing thin. "It's frustrating because we have no control," says the Emmy winner, who, with the exception of some film work, PBS' recent Bleak House adaptation and a five-minute rendezvous with me in her suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena, Calif., has maintained a relatively low profile since X-Files ended nearly four years ago. "It just seems like whoever is involved should do whatever it takes to make it happen."

And the sooner the better, considering Anderson has a project lined up that could further delay the X-flick. "I've been talking about having another child," says the 37-year-old and recently remarried mother of one, daughter Piper, 11. "And I don't want to be anywhere near the pregnancy when I'm [shooting] it."

If and when the film does get made, Spotnitz confirms that it'll be a self-contained story and not steeped in the show's dense mythology. "The first movie had to be about the mythology of the show," he explains. "But this doesn't have to be about the mythology of the show. It can just be a really good scary movie."