The X-Files Reboot: Everything To Know About Ryan Coogler's Hulu Pilot

Believe it: A new take on The X-Files is in the works. Oscar-winning Sinners writer and director Ryan Coogler is rebooting the classic sci-fi series, and his show has landed a pilot order at Hulu.

The X-Files has already had a long life. The groundbreaking procedural — which starred Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, skeptic-and-believer FBI agents investigating the unexplained — originally aired on Fox from 1993 to 2002 and returned for two revival seasons in 2016 and 2018. That's not to mention the two X-Files movies that debuted in theaters in 1998 and 2008. 

Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast in December, Coogler called The X-Files "one of the most beautiful American television shows ever made." He pointed to its arsenal of great writers, including Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, and its influence on investigative duos in later shows like True Detective. 

Now, Coogler is putting his stamp on the iconic franchise. Here's everything we know about Ryan Coogler's X-Files reboot, including who's starring, what the show will be about, and whether Duchovny and Anderson might play a role.

More:

• The best episodes of The X-Files, ranked
• The best shows on Hulu

When will the X-Files reboot premiere?

The Vancouver Sun reports that the pilot for the X-Files reboot will begin shooting in May in Vancouver, where the original series shot its first five seasons in the '90s, as well as the two-season revival in the 2010s. 

After the pilot is filmed, the reboot will still need to be officially picked up to series at Hulu. If it goes to series, the announcement might give us a general idea of when the show will premiere.

The X-Files reboot cast

Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel are set to lead the X-Files reboot, with Deadline reporting that the duo will be "playing new original characters" (as opposed to playing new versions of Scully and Mulder).  

This will be a Station Eleven reunion for Deadwyler and Patel, who both appeared in the great 2021 HBO Max limited series. Deadwyler's other TV credits include Rooster and Watchmen. On film, she earned a SAG Award nomination for her work in The Piano Lesson and SAG and BAFTA nominations for her work in Till.

Patel earned an Emmy nomination for Station Eleven and also starred in HBO's The Franchise. His film work includes The Assessment and Christopher Nolan's upcoming The Odyssey.  

The X-Files reboot premise

The logline for the reboot teases that Deadwyler and Patel will be playing "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."

It's still unclear whether this show will take place in the same universe as the original Fox series. In the X-Files revival, the X-Files division was reopened and reassigned to David Duchovny's Mulder and Gillian Anderson's Scully, only to be shut down again in the finale, which aired in 2018. It's been eight years; does that count as "long-shuttered"? Or will the reboot make some changes — or move to another timeline entirely?

No matter how this reboot relates to the plot of the original series, it will share its structure. Every season on The X-Files was balanced between episodes focused on a big-picture mythology, which dealt with the government's conspiracy to conceal the truth about aliens, and standalone monster-of-the-week episodes. Expect the reboot to strike the same balance. "It wouldn't be X-Files if we didn't do both," Coogler said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in December 2025. "We intend on having both monsters of the week and also the overarching conspiracy."

"Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f---ing scary," Coogler told Last Podcast on the Left in April 2025.

The X-Files reboot behind the scenes

The X-Files reboot will be executive produced by Ryan Coogler, who will also write and direct the pilot. And he's bringing longtime collaborators with him, including Oscar-nominated Sinners casting director Francine Maisler, who cast the pilot, and Oscar-winning Sinners cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw.

Deadline reported in February that Jennifer Yale will serve as showrunner. Yale's other credits include The Copenhagen Test, Your Friends & Neighbors, and Legion.

Chris Carter, who created the original series, will be a "non-writing" executive producer on the reboot, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler will also executive produce.

Carter was the first to break the news that Coogler was working on an X-Files reboot. In a 2023 interview with CBC Radio's On the Coast, Carter said, per Variety, "I just spoke to a young man, Ryan Coogler, who is going to remount The X-Files with a diverse cast. So he's got his work cut out for him, because we covered so much territory." Carter later elaborated on the meeting, telling Inverse in 2024 that he and Coogler had had a "really nice conversation." 

"It's interesting, people say, 'Aren't you possessive of it?'" Carter said. "And I say, 'No, I'm looking forward to seeing what somebody else does with it.'"

Coogler has also consulted with Vince Gilligan, who began his TV career as a prolific X-Files writer before creating Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Pluribus. "Vince gave me a couple hours of advice over Zoom and answered all the questions I had," Coogler told The Hollywood Reporter in January. "I've got them all in my notebook, and I go back to it often."

Coogler has said that his mother's love for The X-Files, which the two watched together when he was a kid, inspired him to reboot the classic series. "Like my relationship with Rocky with my dad, The X-Files is one of those things with my mom," he told Variety in October 2025. "My mom means the world to me … so this is a big one for me. I want to do right by her and the fans. My mom has read some of the stuff I wrote for it. She's fired up."

Are Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny involved in the X-Files reboot?

There's been no word yet on whether the original show's stars will appear in the reboot, but both Anderson and Duchovny have spoken to Coogler. In March, Anderson indicated that she had read the script. "The pilot script is really good. I would say, have an open mind and give it a chance, because it's gonna be f---ing cool. It really is," Anderson said at Awesome Con. She confirmed that she and Coogler had had "a few conversations" about the reboot, saying, "He's such a cool guy, and so talented."

Duchovny told The Hollywood Reporter in April that he hadn't read the script but had also talked to Coogler. "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."

Anderson previously said on the Today show in April 2024 that she would consider returning to the X-Files franchise for Coogler, teasing, "Maybe I'll pop in for a little somethin' somethin'."

How to watch The X-Files

The X-Files is available to stream on Hulu.