‘Sinners' director Ryan Coogler teases his ‘scary' X-Files series reboot
With Sinners currently in cinemas, director Ryan Coogler is looking to the future... And it's looking mighty exciting.
The acclaimed filmmaker behind Fruitvale Station and the Black Panther franchise had already been rumoured to be taking on the reboot of the beloved TV show The X-Files, but he's now confirmed it's his next project.
Coogler appeared on a recent episode of Last Podcast On The Left to discuss his future plans and revealed that the sci-fi drama series is coming.
'I'm working on X-Files. That's what's immediately next,' said Coogler. 'So, I've been excited about that for a long time, and I'm fired up to get back to it, and that, you know, some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really fucking scary.'
Music to our ears, as we're big fans of the original show.
When it was announced, the reboot was set to see the franchise move away from the iconic characters Mulder and Scully, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. However, it now would appear that Coogler may have other plans for the legendary conspiracy-chasing FBI agents.
He shared that he's spoken to Gillian Anderson, and has his 'fingers crossed' that she will potentially return - though it's currently unclear in what capacity.
'She's incredible and fingers crossed there,' he said, explaining that Anderson was finishing up work on Tron: Ares the last time they talked. 'We're going to try to make something really great, bro, and make something for the real 'X-Files' fans and maybe find some new ones.'
The X-Files originally ran for nine seasons from September 1993 to May 2002, with tenth and eleventh seasons arriving in 2016 and 2018. In total, 218 episodes were made – with an additional two feature films, The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008).
Coogler is developing the revival through his overall deal with Walt Disney Television.
Chris Carter, the creator of the original series, has stated he is supportive of the reboot even if he isn't involved in the project. In an interview with Inverse in September 2024, Carter said he was 'looking forward to seeing what somebody else does with it."
As are we, since Coogler has proven he can breathe new life into existing IPs, with his Rocky reboot (2015's Creed) and the way he handled bring Marvel's Black Panther to the big screen. Both Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) are some of the MCU's most critically-acclaimed instalments.
Known for his top-notch storytelling, character-driven projects and socially relevant themes, Coogler is a great pick to reimagine The X-Files. Plus, he's shown with Sinners that he can nail horror and tension. The question is whether he'll be bringing his lucky charm Michael B. Jordan with him, as the actor has starred in all his big screen projects to date...
Wouldn't that be something?
In Sinners, Jordan plays twin brothers who return home to rural Mississippi after a stint hustling for Al Capone in Chicago. They buy a piece of land with an old sawmill from a rumoured Klansman, intent on opening a juke joint. Then, vampires come a'knockin...
Coogler intertwines the history of America with the mythology of blues music and vampire lore to create something layered and truly exciting, a film which we called 'one of the best films of the year so far.'
In our review, we said: 'Sinners is first and foremost a film about music, specifically the blues. By establishing it as a sort of magical conduit between worlds but also across time, Coogler shows that blues music is not only a precious connection to the past and a reminder of post-slavery resilience but also a future refuge that can be exploited. In one virtuoso sequence, the director literalizes the power of music as a connecting ritual through visual and auditory anachronism; it's an extended sequence destined to be one of 2025's most spellbinding and memorable shots.' Read the full review here.
The original X-Files is streaming on Hulu and Disney+. If you're an X-Files newbie, check out our ranking of the show's best episodes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Geek Tyrant
2 hours ago
- Geek Tyrant
Ryan Coogler Isn't Planning a SINNERS Sequel Anytime Soon: 'I Wanted to Get Away From That' — GeekTyrant
Despite the mid-credit scene in Sinners , and the recent reprot that a second film is in development, director Ryan Coogler currently has no plans for setting up a prequel, sequel, or cinematic universe. The critically-acclaimed vampire horror film, which is being called one of 2025's best movies, was never intended to kick off a franchise. According to Coogler, that was kind of the whole point. In a recent interview with Ebony , Coogler he was asked about sequel plans, and he said; 'I never think about that. I've been in a space of making franchise films for a bit, so I wanted to get away from that. 'I was looking forward to working on a film that felt original and personal to me and had an appetite for delivering something to audiences that was original and unique.' After spending the last several years building out major franchises like Black Panther and Creed , Coogler was ready for something different. Sinners was that reset he was looking for, a blood-soaked, emotionally raw story set during the Jim Crow era, rooted in Southern gothic horror and layered with metaphor. Coogler wanted that one film to feel like a complete experience. 'I wanted the movie to feel like a full meal: your appetizers, starters, entrees and desserts. I wanted all of it there. I wanted it to be a holistic and finished thing. That was how I was asked all about it. That was always my intention.' That said, Sinners does leave behind a world that feels bigger than what we saw onscreen. Even Coogler acknowledges that, saying: 'My favorite movies are ones where it feels like a world was happening before and a world is gonna happen after. So that's the best compliment somebody can say.' Still, if the door's closed, actor Michael B. Jordan might be looking for a crack to slip through. Jordan, who plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in the film, said he'd be open to exploring a prequel if the opportunity came around. 'I mean, you know, I'm always… I'd be up for it. Not saying he [Coogler] wouldn't, but he calls the shots!' Set in the 1930s Deep South, Sinners follows Smoke and Stack as they return to their hometown, hoping to outrun their past. What they find instead is something older and far more terrifying… vampires. The movie blends period drama with vampire mythology in ways that feel both fresh and haunting. So for now, it looks like Sinners is a one-and-done. But when a story leaves behind this kind of impact, it doesn't need a sequel to linger. Source: Ebony
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Vincent D'Onofrio reveals what he is still learning about Kingpin after 10 years
The release of Daredevil: Born Again earlier this year almost exactly matched the 10th anniversary of the original Daredevil show's premiere on Netflix. But even after a decade of playing supervillain Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin, Vincent D'Onofrio is still learning things about his character 'every day.' 'As an actor, every day you go to work, something new happens,' D'Onofrio tells Gold Derby during a brief break from filming Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. 'You either fail and learn something from that, or you succeed and learn something from that. And throughout the day, both things can happen. So, yeah, I'm totally, constantly learning about Fisk and about how to execute the character. That never stops, it's continuous.' More from GoldDerby 'Difficult times,' 'screaming matches,' and 'abandonment': David Duchovny and Chris Carter rehash their drama on 'The X-Files' Emma D'Arcy takes a break from filming 'House of the Dragon' Season 3 to talk riding dragons, 'Westerosi jet lag,' and Season 2's 'momentous' moments Jason Schwartzman on the breakneck 'Mountainhead' production: 'I've never done anything like it in my life' Of course, it helps to have new material to play, and Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again put both D'Onofrio and his character in a whole new place after Fisk successfully ran for mayor of New York City. During a rare meet-up with his rival Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) in the premiere episode, Fisk promised that he was done with his criminal ways and ready to be an upright politician. But D'Onofrio knew that things wouldn't go that way, even if his character didn't. 'You can't take these characters and then suddenly turn them into good people, or even less complicated people,' D'Onofrio says. 'I knew that the idea of putting him in the light and having him run for mayor was going to cause a lot of frustration and a lot of struggle for that character. As the actor, I knew that it would never work out. I even felt that putting him in those situations were some of the most difficult things to play. To put a broken person, who really belongs in the dark, in the light is an interesting choice. As the actor, I could feel the frustration of it. I didn't like it myself, but it was good to play it that way.' But despite Fisk's new office, there's also plenty of continuity in the form of his wife, Vanessa Fisk. Though Sandrine Holt was originally cast to play Vanessa during the first attempt at Daredevil: Born Again, after the show's creative revamp the role was recast with Ayelet Zurer (who had played Vanessa on the original Daredevil series), and she and D'Onofrio picked up where they left off. 'Ayelet Zurer is an amazing actress,' D'Onofrio says. 'I've known her for years now, we're very close friends, and to work with her is incredible. Vanessa helps a lot to tell Wilson Fisk's story, like it did in the comics years ago. It defines who he is as a man, not just as a villain.' Vanessa is her husband's moral compass, but not in a good way. During the time he's been absent from New York City (depicted in the Disney+ series Echo), Vanessa took control of his criminal empire, and she's the one who helps him re-embrace his Kingpin side even after becoming mayor. 'Whenever you show somebody that's supposedly a bad guy and you humanize him, it's more scary for everybody,' D'Onofrio says. 'So we did whatever we could in the first season to humanize Fisk, to make sure that people understood that he was a man who didn't consider himself to be a villain, but that the actor who plays him considers him to be broken.' Criminal mayors are not relegated solely to the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eric Adams, the real-life mayor of New York City, was indicted last year on criminal corruption charges from the FBI. 'I don't have any interest in all that,' D'Onofrio says. 'I have my own personal views about all that, but I don't connect those to the show in any way. I think other people may or may not, that's up to them, but I've been playing this character a long time now, and I'm on that track. I'm on that evolution of the character. If it's somehow, in some uncanny way, following what's going on out there in the world, then I guess that's all the better for everybody. That means it's good storytelling, and if people are getting pissed about it or happy about it, that's good storytelling.' Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again is streaming now on Disney+. Best of GoldDerby Jacob Elordi reveals personal reason for joining 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North': 'It was something important to me' Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez on how the 'Agatha All Along' cast 'became a coven' when recording 'The Ballad of the Witches' Road' Jason Schwartzman on the breakneck 'Mountainhead' production: 'I've never done anything like it in my life' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Difficult times,' ‘screaming matches,' and ‘abandonment': David Duchovny and Chris Carter rehash their drama on ‘The X-Files'
Tuesday on David Duchovny's Fail Better podcast, the actor reunited with The X-Files creator Chris Carter to rehash the good times and also the "difficult times" during their time working on the Emmy-winning sci-fi hit about FBI agents Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigating unexplained phenomenon. The program aired on Fox from 1993 to 2002, with two feature films in 1998 and 2008, and a two-season revival in 2016 and 2018. Duchovny began by saying that it's "obvious history" that his "entire career was made possible by The X-Files." The actor then delved into the troubles behind the scenes when he left after Season 7. (Mulder appeared in half of Season 8 and in the original series finale in Season 9). More from GoldDerby Emma D'Arcy takes a break from filming 'House of the Dragon' Season 3 to talk riding dragons, 'Westerosi jet lag,' and Season 2's 'momentous' moments Jason Schwartzman on the breakneck 'Mountainhead' production: 'I've never done anything like it in my life' 'Étoile' creators say cinematographer M. David Mullen was their 'film school' "Something lost in the times that we've done a reboot of the show, twice now, and even the second movie, goes back to me leaving the show," Duchovny declared. "We don't have to, like, hash it out, but I realized later that that was a difficult thing to do. You may have been as tired as I was, or as wanting to move on much as I was. I consider myself a team player, so I've always felt a bit of an abandonment, not by you, but of you, in that sense. I don't know if we're going for any resolution here or anything like that, this is not the VH1 version." Carter confirmed that by Season 7, "We were all tired. We had made a big move from Vancouver to Los Angeles. We had done well over 100 episodes. There were legal, contractual things going on that were fraught, and you and I had a parting. We became — I don't want to say mortal enemies — but it was a difficult time." The showrunner recalled that Duchovny came to him after he'd worked out "legally with Fox that he would leave the show for a time." Carter considered those years that they were "at odds" to be a "forgettable part of the show" for remembered a time when he was engaged in a "lawsuit with Fox [over compensation from reruns airing on FX] while working on the Fox lot, and actually had my security sweep my trailer for bugs. We were afraid that we were being bugged." When Carter ran into Duchovny around that time in Malibu, outside of the show, he hugged him out of "reflex," explaining, "I think it surprised both of us." The artisans also talked about their "screaming matches" in Vancouver during Season 11, which Duchovny said was a misunderstanding regarding him wanting to catch an "early flight back home," and unintentionally making Carter think he was trying to "simplify his work" in directing the episode. "After 11 seasons, I'd just had it with you," Carter joked as the men laughed. SEEEverything to know about Ryan Coogler's 'The X-Files' reboot: Gillian Anderson finally weighs in Their time together wasn't all bad. "Watching you write, watching you shepherd the other writers on The X-Files, I re-learned a love for plot and for the smart machinery that keeps somebody guessing that goes to the highs and lows," Duchovny told his former boss. "Without that, I think I'd be making nonsensical movies that don't go anywhere. It's not about language, it's about the plot, at least in our business." Said Carter, "When I did the pilot for The X-Files, I wrote a 17-page, single-spaced outline, so the story was very important. I didn't just wing it. When we started up the show, we hired writers, James Wong and Glen Morgan came on, and they had been working on Stephen J. Cannell shows, and they brought with them a bulletin board, and we put up 3x5 cards, and that became the way we plotted the episodes." When Duchovny complimented Carter's "perfect" handwriting on those index cards, Carter added, "That was a Glen Morgan thing. He actually had beautiful penmanship, and so that became competitive — who could make the most beautiful cards? We've worked like that ever since, and I think Vince Gilligan still works that way on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul." Duchovny calls the board method "smart," recalling, "We would work on some scripts and we would just take this card, and this scene could maybe go over here, or this scene goes over here, maybe it comes back, maybe it doesn't, and that all makes sense." Fox/Liaison The actor thanked the creator for allowing him to write and direct episodes of The X-Files back in the day, claiming, "I can't repay that thanks. It's really opened me up into another part of who I am." While TV stars of today are "gifted" a producer credit, Duchovny "never wanted to be" because he wanted to "earn it." Duchovny directed three episodes of the series: "The Unnatural" in Season 6, "Hollywood A.D." in Season 7, and "William" in Season 9. "The great thing about The X-Files was that you were surrounded by people who wanted it to be good from the beginning, and that's not, in my experience, always the case. Some people just show up for work." When they shot in Vancouver from Seasons 1 through 5, the positivity was the reason Carter "got up every day to do the job." News was also made on the Fail Better podcast, as Carter announced he'd just been given the "go-ahead" to do a director's cut of the second movie, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, from 2008. "I can't tell you how excited I am about this," he said. "Now I have the chance to make the scary movie that I always intended to make. It's really bringing to life something that, for me, was on the page and never got to the screen." Duchovny is a four-time Emmy nominee for The X-Files (1997, 1998), The Larry Sanders Show (1997), and Life With Bonnie (2003). Carter received eight Emmy nominations overall for producing, writing, and directing The X-Files. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby Jacob Elordi reveals personal reason for joining 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North': 'It was something important to me' Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez on how the 'Agatha All Along' cast 'became a coven' when recording 'The Ballad of the Witches' Road' Jason Schwartzman on the breakneck 'Mountainhead' production: 'I've never done anything like it in my life' Click here to read the full article.
