If you’re Ryan Coogler right about now, we’d imagine this is your moment to pitch any passion project you want and get that thing made. Still riding high on the back of his Southern Gothic chiller Sinners’ record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations, three BAFTA wins, mega box office success, and — most significantly — its ranking as Empire’s best movie of 2025, the man has the world at his feet. And per THR’s reporting, Coogler’s clout has landed the filmmaker’s long-mooted The X-Files reboot the green light at Hulu. And what’s more, the series has found its first co-lead: Danielle Deadwyler, star of Till and The Woman In The Yard.
As THR shares, Coogler — who became the first Black filmmaker to win an Original Screenplay award at last night’s BAFTAs — is aboard to write and direct the pilot of his take on The X-Files for Hulu, which is what’s officially been greenlit by the streamer thus far. Eschewing the cynic-and-true-believer dynamic shared by Gillian Anderson’s Agent Dana Scully and David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder in Chris Carter’s OG X-Files, the newly released description for Coogler’s X-Files suggests that while the chalk-and-cheese lead pairing will remain, we’ll actually be getting a long-in-the-tooth duo who are both heading into the unknown together. It reads: “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.” Deadwyler will, of course, be one of the two leading FBI agents, with the other yet to be cast.
In recent years, movies like Jordan Peele’s Nope and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Disclosure Day have seen a revivification of interest in alien phenomena on-screen, while congressional hearings and the ramblings of a certain world leader on their own social media platform have given rise to a fresh wave of true believers/enthusiastic conspiracists. Given Coogler’s established franchise nous (see: Creed, Black Panther) and ability to blend horror, social commentary, and lore-rich world building in a way that makes the speculative and even outright mythic feel plausible, real, we want to believe that this X-Files reboot will be a banger. Watch this, er, space!