The hunt for the truth out there is back on. Ryan Coogler‘s long-gestating The X-Files reboot has received a pilot greenlight at Hulu. Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) is set as the co-lead in the project, from Onyx Collective and 20th Television. Jennifer Yale (The Copenhagen Test) has come on board as showrunner, Deadline can reveal exclusively.
Sinners filmmaker Coogler is writing and directing the pilot for the new X-Files. In it, two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents — one played by Deadwyler — form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.
Yale executive produces alongside The X-Files creator Chris Carter as well as Coogler, Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler of Proximity Media. The company’s Simone Harris is a co-executive producer. The pilot is being cast by Sinners casting director Francine Maisler.
The pilot order caps a three-year journey for the project, which falls under Black Panther director Coogler’s five-year exclusive television deal with Disney, the parent company of Hulu, 20th TV and Onyx.
Carter first revealed during a 2023 podcast interview that he had spoken with Coogler who was “going to remount The X Files with a diverse cast,” adding, “He’s got his work cut out for him because we covered so much territory.”
Coogler confirmed the project and his involvement during a podcast appearance of his own last April.
“I’ve been excited about that for a long time, and I’m fired up to get back to it. Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f*cking scary,” he said, adding, “We’re gonna try to make something really great and really be something for the real X-Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”
In the same interview, Coogler also disclosed that he had spoken with original X-Files star Gillian Anderson about the reboot, which took awhile to come together as the filmmaker was busy with Sinners, an Oscar frontrunner with a record 16 nominations, and other projects, including Disney+’s Ironheart.
With Coogler making The X-Files a priority post-Sinners, it gained steam over the past couple of months and Yale came on board as showrunner.
Hulu has switched to a largely pilot development model in the last couple of years even for its high-profile titles. The streamer’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot also is making a pilot directed by Chloé Zhao.
Carter’s original X-Files starred Anderson and David Duchovny as FBI Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, who investigate cases involving paranormal phenomena. The series premiered on Fox in 1993 and ran for nine seasons. It spawned two feature films, The X-Files (1998) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), as well as a 2016 revival, which aired on Fox for two seasons.
Coogler’s latest film Sinners made history at the BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday, becoming the most decorated movie by a Black director. The film won three awards, including Best Original Screenplay for Coogler’s script. The film, starring Michael B. Jordan, has amassed over $365 million globally. Coogler is the founder of production company Proximity Media alongside partners Zinzi Coogler and Ohanian. He is repped by WME, M88 and Cohen and Gardner.
Yale most recently executive produced and co-showran The Copenhagen Test for Peacock, with Simu Liu starring and Atomic Monster producing. She wrote on the Apple TV series Your Friends and Neighbors and before that was writer/executive producer on Apple’s See and Netflix’s Chambers.
From Deadline.com