For fans of "The X-Files," a new movie could not come soon enough. They would have preferred it to be right when the TV series ended, but even six years later they crave a reunion with Scully and Mulder. More casual viewers may need some more convincing. Perhaps the first piece of evidence would be that series creator Chris Carter actually planned to do the second film, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," right after the show.
"Fox cames to us a year after the TV series ended, and said, 'If you want to make another movie, let’s go' and we went," Carter recalled. "We worked out a story, and they liked it. Negotiations began, then it all broke down over what I will call TV contractual problems, which took, unexpectedly, years to resolve. It’s the nature of the business. When it was finally resolved, they called us back and said, 'If you still want to do that movie, we still want to, but you have to do it now. It’s now or never. There is a writer’s strike looming and if you don’t do it now, it might be two years before you get another opportunity. We think that’s too long. You will have asked the audience to wait too long.' We agreed. So that is why we did it five years out. It’s now six years since the show was on the air."
Producer and co-writer Frank Spotnitz actually developed a story for the movie before the contractual delay. "We actually came up with the X-File for this in 2003," said Spotnitz. "We walked away for four years. When we came back, we actually lost our notes. So we had to start over. Of course, we remembered a lot of it. In the process of starting over, we found ourselves so interested in where Mulder and Scully were in their lives, and the nature of their relationship. We realized that, in order to be true to the characters, that relationship could not have stood still. It had to have changed."
The actors did not need much coaxing to return to the roles. Even though David Duchovny left the show in its final year, he was eager to play Mulder again after half a decade. "My coming back was not based on script," said Duchovny. "At this point I have almost complete blind trust in Chris and Frank to come up with the goods. So my only concern was that it should be a stand alone and not something that you needed specific knowledge of 'The X-Files' to enjoy. When I read the script I saw that it was that. Other than that I had no hopes or plans for what this would be. I just knew that the world we'd made and the world that Chris and Frank would remake was going to be satisfying to me."
Gillian Anderson agreed to the film early on in development. "I had stated my interest in being onboard sometime ago as well," she said. "By the time I read the script it was kind of a given that this was something that we were going to do. So I don't think there was ever a point where I jumped more onboard or had an opportunity to back out of it. "
Though "I Want to Believe" is designed as a standalone story, the filmmakers could not avoid injecting emotion into the cinematic reunion. "We saw it much more emotionally than we did immediately after the show ended," said Spotnitz. "I think it is an unexpectedly emotional film. That was just the story that came out of us, the story we really wanted to tell. The more you think about this movie, the more parallels you will see between what the bad guys are doing, and what Mulder and Scully are doing, and what Scully is doing with the boy. There are a lot of resonances that may not be obvious on a first viewing. It just felt emotionally right."
All this talk of standing alone is not to suggest that the new movie exists outside the realm of the series. In fact, such a story might even be more in tune with "The X-Files" than even their first film was. "If you look at 'The X-Files' generally, we did 202 episodes," said Carter. "About 80% of them are not 'mythology' episodes, which tend to be the epic episodes. They deal with the big conspiracies, the search for Mulder’s sister. They deal with what I would call the saga of 'The X-Files.' When we finished the first movie, we said the next movie we do will be a story that stands alone, what some people call a monster of the week story. We wanted to do a story that didn’t require you to have any knowledge of that ongoing story arc. So that is simply why we chose to do a story like this. "
When the series was on, fans of any particular mode of storytelling need only wait one week to get the next chapter. The six year wait might make some fans a tad more picky.
"It did occur to me many times that, because we did 202 episodes, and because there are so many devoted fans, there are probably at least as many ideas about what this movie could and should have been," said Spotnitz. "There’s really nothing we can do about that. We are kind of victims of our own success in that way but for us, it was never a question. That was what was in our hearts, and it has always served us well in the past."
With so many different types of X-Files to choose from, Carter and Co. had to narrow down what a single two hour movie would be. "We wanted to make this as pure a movie as we could, about Mulder and Scully. They are the essence of 'The X-Files.' We were struck with their relationship and their emotional story and returning to the show after such a long absence.
The more characters you bring in from the past, the more explaining you have to do, and the more it gets wrapped up in the mythology of the show. In this movie, we wanted to keep it as simple as we possibly could. There were many other characters we talked about that we would have loved to bring back in this movie. Ultimately, there was only room for one. But it’s not a sign of any lack of enthusiasm or affection for the others."
One new character added for this film is Father Joseph Crissman, played by Billy Connolly. "I had Billy Connolly in mind when I wrote it," said Carter. "We didn’t know if we would get Billy Connolly. I almost didn’t get to meet him because of a problem with transportation. But, planes, trains, and automobiles, I actually got to sit in front of him, telling him what a big fan I was of his, and I thought he could do anything. He was honored, I think, and flattered. He took the script, which I wasn’t giving out to people, and I gave it to him without all the forms we usually make people sign. He took it with him to New York, read it on the plane, and wrote me the nicest note which I will have framed on my wall. “When do we start?” It was that simple."
It may be later, the characters may have aged and grown and there may still be loose threads, but Duchovny thinks "I Want to Believe" is classic "X-Files." "What I've been saying is I think it harkens back to the kind of beginnings of the show," he said. "The first couple years, the first three years where we were really the only thriller, horror, scary show on television. I know that everybody loves Mulder and Scully and the relationships and all that but I think originally, that's what people fell in love with. Here's a show that's doing this. There hasn't been a show like this that's doing that. In many ways, we got back to our roots of the show. The idea of me trying to be like that guy who might be on reruns right now, as much as I'd love to be able to, I think it would be a little embarrassing to try. So Mulder changed over the course of the nine years of the show and changed again over the six years that we haven't seen him."
Catch up with "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" this Friday.
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