Looking for X-Files casting news, folks? The truth is out there… and can be found here! Barely a month after we learned that Danielle Deadwyler is set to co-lead Ryan Coogler’s upcoming The X-Files reboot pilot at Hulu, we now know who will be playing the (figurative) Mulder to Deadwyler’s (figurative) Scully. Per Variety‘s reporting, Yesterday and The Franchise star Himesh Patel has boarded the project alongside Deadwyler, teeing up an unexpected but not at all unwelcome Station Eleven reunion for the duo.
According to Variety‘s source on the inside of the project, Deadwyler and Patel will be playing entirely new characters in Coogler’s take on The X-Files, so don’t expect the pair to be going for a one-to-one recreation of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s iconic duo. Rather, as the series’ brief yet compelling logline suggests, writer-director Coogler and showrunner Jennifer Yale’s take on the sci-fi classic is going for a different kind of chalk-and-cheese dynamic with Deadwyler and Patel. It reads: “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents (Deadwyler, Patel) form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
Having been burned once recently with an auteur-driven revival of a 90s cult classic series unexpectedly getting the axe following a pilot order at Hulu (Buffy: New Sunnydale, we’ll never forget you), we are doing our level best to keep our expectations and hype in check for The X-Files‘ small-screen comeback. That being said, with Coogler coming fresh off the back of record-breaking Oscar nominations — and historic Oscar wins — for Sinners, momentum, demand, and also experience handling major IP are all on the Creed and Black Panther filmmaker’s side. We want to believe it’s going to happen — and with Himesh Patel and Danielle Deadwyler now set to star, we can’t help but think it probably will. Watch this space! *Alexa, play ‘Materia Primoris’*
