ABSTRACT

During the summer of 2014, Vulture published an interview with The X-Files (FOX, 1993–2002; 2016) creator, Chris Carter, in which he confirmed that conversations had been held with Fox about a reboot of the series. Speculation among fans was rife, particularly given the emphasis placed on the term ‘reboot’. Would the original cast members return? Would the series continue from the end of the 2008 film? Or would a new series “begin [the] franchise anew from the ashes of [its] old or failed property [and] seek to disavow and render inert its predecessor’s validity” (Proctor 2012: 4)? In a January 2015 interview with Gillian Anderson, the Nerdist Podcast created a new hashtag, #xfiles2015, calling for it to be utilized by fans to persuade Fox to revive the show (Levine 2015). Later that month Fox confirmed they were in the “logistical” stage of planning for the franchise’s return, and in March 2015, Patrick Munn reported that the series would return as a short-order mini-series with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprising their roles as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (2015).