Carter gets behind new X-Files film

Mulder (left) and Scully.
Mulder (left) and Scully.
Chris Carter in the flesh is not the sort of guy you'd expect to produce shadowy stories about government conspiracies and alien invasions.

The director of The X-Files: I Want to Believe - a new feature film based on the landmark science-fiction franchise he masterminded in the 1990s - is the embodiment of a relaxed Californian surfer, thoughtful and easy-going rather than tense and paranoid.

As the deadline to deliver his cut of the film to the studio loomed, Carter was calm and deliberate in his Malibu residence, watching scenes with a critical eye and decisively directing editor Richard A. Harris to alter a particular sequence to enhance its rhythm and pacing.

On the monitors special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) look surprisingly untouched by age.

They stand amid a snow-covered landscape talking to a mysterious man with shaggy grey hair.

Something unsettling is taking place, but what, exactly? Carter won't comment.

In fact, neither he nor Frank Spotnitz, the series' former show runner and the movie's producer, will reveal anything about the film - except that, chronologically, it picks up six years after the series ended in 2002 and is a stand-alone story that they very much hope will please fans of the show while also appealing to a new audience.

But what's the nature of Mulder and Scully's relationship? "You'll have to watch the movie."

Is it safe to say there are other actors from the series who appear in the film? "It's not safe to say. There may be."

Are there plans for more X-Files features? "We'll have to do a good job on this one."

Interestingly enough, though, the policy of remaining tight-lipped goes beyond speaking to journalists.

Before shooting began, only a handful of people - Carter and Spotnitz, Duchovny and Anderson, a few select 20th Century Fox executives - had laid eyes on Carter's script.

And before doing so, they were required to sign nondisclosure agreements.

During production, the heads of the various below-the-line departments were not given their own copies; instead, they were required to go into a locked room with a video camera if they needed to revisit something from the screenplay.

Roughly 90% of the crew were never allowed to see a copy for fear that the top-secret story line would be leaked.

Even the sides, small pages with dialogue from a scene being filmed on a particular day, were collected and destroyed after that day's shooting.

Even Area 51 doesn't have this kind of security.

"We're very good about being paranoid," Spotnitz concedes with a laugh.

The TV series was, on any number of levels, ground-breaking, not least for spinning off a feature film, 1998's The X-Files: Fight the Future, in the middle of its prime-time run.

But by the time The X-Files ended in 2002, Duchovny and Anderson had made no secret of their readiness to move on.

Particularly after the events of September 11, audiences seemed less interested in watching stories built on the idea that the American Government is deliberately deceiving the citizenry.

What lured Carter back from the skies was Duchovny: "I came back because David was very interested in doing this movie; I came back because Frank had a long talk with me, and he was convincing.

I came back largely because there was enthusiasm," Carter offers.

"And Fox called and said: 'If you want to do this movie, it's now or never'." - Chris McIntyre

 

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