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Sam covers TV, movies, games and books at Polygon, making recommendations about what to watch and play while interviewing actors, writers, and designers about their work. She has spent 15 years working as a journalist and critic, with bylines across numerous publications including IGN, GamesRadar+, The A.V. Club, The Verge, and Windows Central.
Jennifer Yale will serve as showrunner and executive producer
The X-Files is officially returning under Ryan Coogler
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Black Panther and Sinners director Ryan Coogler has been talking about rebooting Chris Carter’s classic sci-fi series The X-Files since 2023. The project received a series of promising updates in early 2026 as Station Eleven veterans Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel were cast as the show’s leads. The news was followed by the announcement of several high-profile guest stars, including Amy Madigan, Steve Buscemi, and Ben Foster. Now the show has officially been picked up by Hulu.
“What Chris Carter created is special, and we wanted to honor everything that made the original series connect with so many people while also finding our own way into that world,” Coogler said in a statement. “Danielle and Himesh, along with the rest of our cast, have brought such original perspectives and performances to these characters, and watching that come together has been one of the most rewarding parts of the experience.”
Deadwyler and Patel will play two very different FBI agents in the vein of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. They form an unlikely bond after being assigned to The X-Files, a long-shuttered division dedicated to cases involving unexplained phenomena. Coogler wrote and directed the pilot and will serve as executive producer of the series alongside showrunner Jennifer Yale, whose writing credits include Dexter and Da Vinci’s Demons. Coogler’s longtime collaborator Ludwig Göransson, who earned Oscars for his Black Panther and Sinners scores, is handling the pilot’s music.
When will The X-Files premiere on Hulu?
No release date for the project has been announced, but Coogler previously said that the series would premiere before the next Black Panther film, which is scheduled for release on Dec. 15, 2028. Assuming everything goes according to plan, that means we’ll likely be able to see Coogler’s The X-Files pilot in 2027 or early 2028.