And that's that...

I really neglected this blog. The intention was to chronocle my excitement leading up to the film, but other things just got in the way. That's what I thought anyway. Maybe I just subliminally anticapated what was coming.

The movie is out… and it’s a bomb. It had a $10 million opening weekend. The critics hate it. Spotniz has issued an apology for the film's rampant homophobia…

Everything has fallen apart.

The X-Files is dead. There is no way they can turn this mess into a franchise now.

So I guess this blog is dead too.

The Poster!

Okay, so wow… I haven’t blogged in weeks.

It’s not that I’ve been sitting around doing nothing, not thinking about The X-Files, and its certainly not that there hasn’t been tonnes of exciting stuff happing in the world of The X-Files lately (teaser trailer I'm looking in your direction!). It's just that I’ve been tied up with my other commitments; primarily (Cult)ure Magazine and my novel (which I finally finished the first draft of yesterday! Yay!)

That said, the below posters is just way too exciting not to say SOMETHING about!

This is a perfect, simple, iconic image that just screams X-Files. It seems to evoke the darker promo images of the show's earlier season, while also calling back to the Fight the Future teaser posters with the projected X that I loved so much. A very good sign.

There is also a great article here, covering an X-Files recent panel that had cast and crew discussing the series and the film. While the article contains little info regarding Done One, it does confirm that the movie continuity will reflect the passage of time since the series ended. Apparently Carter also mentioned that Mulder and Scully's baby could be referenced in the film, something most of the posters over at the Ultimate X-Files discussion board thought I was crazy for suggesting a few months ago!

New (Cult)u're Magazine X-Files Article

The new issue of (Cult)u're Magazine is out. Check it out here: http://www.culturemagazine.ca/

This issue's theme is "Circles", and the cinema section includes an article of mine called "The X-Files 2: All Things Come Full Circle".

This is a taste of what the article has to offer:

The X-Files continued to draw viewers as Seasons Two and Three progressed, and managed to tap into the cultural zeitgeist in a significant way, positioning itself at the center of a cultural, artistic, political and intellectual nexus. A growing interest in feminism and mid-90s ‘girl power,’ the rise of the ‘metrosexual’ male, a renewed fascination in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, the spread of new age spiritualism, a growing cynicism towards government representatives, the popular birth of cell phones and internet communication technology, along with the massive spread of on-line culture, all influenced and were likewise influenced by the series.

You can read the full article here: http://www.culturemagazine.ca/content/view/147/54/

If you like what you see, be sure to subscribe to the magazine!

How to Solve "The Truth" Status Quo Problems

Okay, X-Files News Dot Com has the latest batch of set photos and, in the pictures, Mulder has a beard. Why does Mulder have a beard? Well, let's ruminate, shall we?

I've been thinking a lot about the strange situation "The Truth" left Mulder and Scully in and how it will be reflected in the movie. Chris Carter is faced with three major status quo problems going into this movie:

1) Mulder and Scully are a couple.
2) Mulder and Scully have a child.
3) Mulder and Scully are on the run from the government.

All these of these situations will need to be fixed. Carter isn't going to want ANY of those plot points to exist in the movie. He going to want a non-romantically linked Mulder and Scully working for the government investigating cases, without having to mention the babysitter watching little William back home.

So this is what I think is going to have happened between "The Truth" and "Done One".
Baby William will have died, perhaps because of the difficulties of life underground and on the run. The death of their child is too much for the couple, and Mulder and Scully break-up. (There's two of the three problems fixed right there.)

Following the break-up, Scully returns to the mainstream government work, only to discover that there has been a change in regimes and she and Mulder are no longer wanted criminals. Scully spends years working as part of the system, while Mulder refuses to trust the system and remains underground.

They don't speak for years. Scully works to make a name for herself and a respectable sicentist and distances herself from her past on the X-Files.

Then, Scully gets involved in a case that can only be described as 'paranormal'. She's in over her head and needs help. She is forced to seek out her old lover, her old partner, her old friend Fox Mulder.

Mulder's been living as a bearded, crazy underground paranormal researcher, but without the resources of the FBI too aid him and without the scientific knowledge of his old partner, he hasn't accomplished much.

Scully finds him and convinces him to return to the fold. He shaves his beard, puts on the old suit and they head out to investigate this X-File together for the first time in five years.

All of our problems are solved. We have a non-romantically linked and babyless non-wanted Mulder and Scully working for the government and investigating the paranormal together, without all of the baggage of the last two seasons.

I'd been thinking about this for a while and seeing Mulder in that beard only convinced me further that this is the approach they are going to take.

First Mulder and Scully Pictures

Holy Shit!

We all saw those behind the scenes shots of Duchovny from the first few days of shooting last month, but here it is: our first pictures of Special Agent Fox Mulder and Special Agent Dana Scully together again!

I guess any hair questions are now put to rest. We have a long haired Scully in The X-Files 2!

And doesn't Gillian look great?!

Wow... those pictures don't really look weird at all. It just looks like Mulder and Scully doing their thing. If I had to describe them in one word, I would say that the pictures look "right", which is a good sign.

When I first saw these pics, I had to do a double take to make sure they weren't just stills from some old episode. It would seem that, aestetically speaking, the look of the characters is right where the series left off!

In other news, X-Files Ultimate reported recently that the budget for the film is $30 million, which is rather small when you consider that films like Superman Returns and Spider-Man 3 are all breaking the $200 million budget mark these days.

But heh, The X-Files isn't Spider-Man. They don't need tonnes of special effects. The best special effect The X-Files ever used was the dynamic chemistry between its two leads. 1013 shot nine years of episodes on a television budget and did just fine, so hopefully a modest budget shouldn't be a hinderance.

Then again, if you think of Carter as a first time feature film director, $30 million aint bad! Hell, look what Joss Whedon (another first time feature film director) did with Serenity's $39 million budget!

Then again, when it comes to directing, Carter aint no Whedon...

X-Files 2 Set Visit Auction Update

Seven hours into the auction.

Latest bid: $10,800.

Seriously.

Money, Happiness, and the X-Files 2 Set Visit Auction

Does money buy happiness? I (like most poor people) would tend to argue in the affirmative. Here's an example: over at GAWS, it has been announced that they are going to auction off two passes to spend a day on the set of the X-Files 2, watching shooting take place and meeting the cast and crew.

It is times like this that I really, really wish I wasn't in poverty. I mean sure, I want a nice house and a cool car. I'd like to be able to know for sure that I am going to have enough money for food and rent at the end of the month. I'd like to have my student loans and credit card debt paid off. Those creature comforts would all be wonderful, but what I would really like is the ability to drop a few thousands dollars, or whatever it is going to cost, to win this auction and get onto the set of the X-Files 2.

I couldn't even imagine what that experience would be like... to finally get to meet people like Chris Carter and Gillian Anderson, people who have brought such joy and pleasure to my life. These people affected my personal development on a deep level. They played a huge part in my becoming the person I am today and an even bigger part in the person I was throughout high school. They have had a monumental influence on my life, and I have had no influence what-so-ever on theirs. The opportunity to say, "Thanks," would be amazing.

And that, my friends, is how money can buy happiness. Money affords you the ability to walk onto the set of the new X-Files movie, shake hands with Chris Carter, look him in the eyes and say, "Thank you. Your art made my life better." These are the moments that poverty steals away from you. It's not just that you can't have nice things, it's that you can't do the things you want to do, the things that would bring you real joy and create memories that would last you a life time.

I had the opportunity to meet Chris Owens, the actor who played Jeffery Spender, at a comic book convention in Toronto a few years ago. And William B David, the cigarrette smoking man himself, was kind enough to send me an email a few months back. In that sense, I'm lucky. I have interacted with some of the people who brought The X-Files to life.

In fact, I'm very lucky. When I say "poverty" I mean only that I have to worry about how I'm going to pay my rent sometimes, and that it will be a few decades before my wife and I pay off our student loans. I don't mean that I am on the streets, starving and alone, like hundreds of thousands of Canadians out there. I've rarely gone hungry in my life and I have a shelf that holds nine seasons worth of X-Files DVDs, most of which sold for more than $100 each back in the day.

But that only serves to prove my point. One of the reasons I was able to experience the bliss of watching The X-Files was the fact that I had the money to afford cable television, a DVD player and the box sets of the seasons. The X-Files brought me bountiful joy, but only because I had the money to purchase access to that joy.

My wife and I currently pay $700 a month in student loans. Lets say the set passes end up selling for $5000, and lets say that I won. That would mean it would take me an extra seven months to pay off our student loan debt. Throw on the interest and it would probably be more like eight or nine months. Plus, we'd have to add the cost of plane tickets to Vancouver, lodging once we are there, and transportation to the set. That's probably a couple more months worth of money there.

So, in the end of the day, I have to ask myself, is one day on the set of The X-Files 2 worth one year of my life? Sadly, the answer is, "probably not."

I really hope that whoever wins the auction appreciates how truly lucky they are.

First Set Photos Arrive

We truly live in a glorious age. A mere three days into shooting, and already we have our first set of behind the scenes photos! Check them out over at X-Files Ultimate, where they also have an awesome X-Files 2 countdown clock. Shots include Duchovny, as well as Peet and Xzibit. Plus there is the great shot, to the right, of Carter directing Duchovny.

I guess we will have to wait a little longer to find out what Scully's hair is going to look like, but Duchovny's hair and clothing in these photos certainly look appropriately Mulder-esk.

The First Day of Shooting

Here it is, the day we have all been waiting for! As I type this, the first scenes from the new X-Files film are being shot in Vancouver, B.C.

On this very special and exciting day I want to send out all my best wishes and good vibes to Gillian, David and Chris.

Here's hoping you folks knock this one out of the park!

New X-Files 2 Cast Members

GAWS is reporting three new additions to the X-Files 2 cast!

Xzibit, Amanda Peet and Billy Connolly have all signed on to perform in the film. Apparently Xzibit and Peet will pay FBI agents. No word on what role Connolly will play, though one can picture him playing an Alvin Kurtzweil type character pretty easily.

Connolly, incident, appeared in Lemony's Snicket's A Serious of Unfortunate Events, one of my all time favourite movies.

The Final Weekend Before Shooting

So here we are. The last weekend before Gillian Anderson, David Duchovney and Chris Carter begin shooting a new X-Files movie in Vancouver.

It's still hard to believe how quickly it all happened. I mean, we all knew Carter needed to finish up his lawsuit with Fox before a new film would go ahead, but did anyone expect it would happen this fast? I doubt it! Just a few months ago, it was all still rumours. Now, we're three days away from shooting.

It's strange. My life has changed so much since the final episode of the X-Files aired so long ago. In the years following the airing of "The Truth" I finished my undergrad, and then grad school, split from my long time girlfriend, started a career, got married… I am a completely different person than who I was back then. Will Mulder and Scully have changed too? Have they spent five years on the run from the government? If so, is William with them? He would be, what, six years old now? Are Mulder and Scully even still a couple? So many questions. I suppose foremost among them (and really the only one that matters) is will the movie be good?

It's strange… this whole thing feels like some sort of flashback to the 1990's, a period of time which has started to look better and better given the hindsight of the post 911 era. I think Mulder represented a mode of heroic idealism that has been washed away by the complexities of life in the 21st century. We just don't have dreamers like Mulder anymore. Everything is now cynical and ironic, with an underlining sense of utter futility.

I wonder if Carter's 90's politics were a really a response to Clinton's administration, or if they were actually a reflection back on the era of Nixon's conservative and corrupt reign which would have taken place during his formative years; a reflection that was, in fact, afforded by the freedom offered by Clinton's Democrats. I would definitely lean towards the latter, which truly makes me wonder how Carter's new film will reflect life under Bush Jr. I just hope he hasn't lost his sense of unbridled optimism and belief in goodness, even in the face of ever amassing evil.

.

It has become a very different world since Mulder and Scully last graced our screens. I'm looking forward to finding out who they have become.

Gillian Has Gone Red!

This week in X-Files news: Gillian Anderson has dyed her hair red!!!!

Here's snap shot of her from just a few days ago:

My god... its little moments like these that make you realize this thing is really going to happen. The second I saw these pictures, I got those totally exciting butterflies zooming around my stomach. It's happening!! Gillian is one step closer to transforming back into Dana Scully. These are just such insanely exciting times to be an X-Phile.

Gillian went blond almost immediately after The X-Files went off the air. Admittedly, she looked insanely beautiful as a blond. I mean:

Hello!

But, of course, Scully MUST be red! It will be interesting to see if she cuts it shorter in the next two weeks before shooting begins, or if we are going to have a Season Nine-ish long haired Scully.

.

Thanks to X-Files Ultimate for the link, and the Gillian Anderson Gallery for posting the pics.

Ultimate X-Files Page

Wow... just stumbled across X-Files Ultimate. This is an AMAZING site, with tonnes of X-Files 2 info. I highly recommend it!

In fact, I will likely be linking to them often, as they seem to have lots of gossip, spoilers and news! My hat goes off to the creators and contributors to the site.

Frank Black in X-Files 2?

Over at Aint It Cool News, they are reporting the possibility that Lance Henrikson could appear in the XF2. Apparently when asked, at a convention, if Frank Black would make an appearance in the movie, Mr. Henrikson responded that he, "wasn't aloud to talk about it". This, of course, makes for perfect gossip material!

Personally, I think it is fairly unlikely that the character Frank Black will appear in the film. If anything, Lance Henrikson will likely play a different character, despite having appeared on The X-Files as Frank Black. 1013 has a long history of re-using favourite actors that have already appeared in the X-Files universe as other characters. Good ol' Terry O'Quinn, in his pre-Lost days, appeared as no less than three different characters on The X-Files, while also playing Peter Watts on Millennium, which takes place in the XF universe as well.

Either way, this is great news. I would LOVE to see Frank Black appear in XF2, but any Henrikson performance will be wonderful.

The X-Files 2: Done One

A number of sources are reporting that the shooting title for the film will be "Done One".

Is this a reference to the already established fact that the sequel will follow a monster of the week format, i.e. will be "Done in One"?

Or is it perhaps refering to the fact that they have already "done one" and its now finally time for part 2?

The working title for Fight the Future, if you will remember, was "Blackwood", supposedly a reference to the writer Algernon Blackwood.

Harsh Realm: It's Just a (Drinking) Game

Alright, here's another time killer (something to keep us busy while we're waiting for more news on X-Files 2). I've put together a Harsh Realm drinking game. For the light weights, I would highly encourage changing "shots" to "sips". Check it out:

Harsh Realm: It's Just a (Drinking) Game

Take one shot if:

Someone says “Santiago”.

Tom, or Sophie, writes a cheesy letter and it is read in a voice over.

Pinocchio tells Hobbs that someone is “just a VC”.

Dexter does something plot related.

While providing exposition, Pinocchio uses the words “Harsh Realm”.

Take two shots if:

Hobbs and Pinocchio get captured.

There is a glitch in the game.

Someone gets killed and digitizes.

Florence is not in the episode.

Waters makes a tortured face like he has to take a big dump, but is too constipated.

Santiago gives a didactic speech.

Hobbs and Pinocchio scout something out, while hiding on the ground in the woods.

Take three shots if:

The episode has quasi religious implications.

Hobbs makes a reference to his “girl”.

Inga Fossa appears in the episode.

Hobbs does something that is completely stupid and unrealistic, but heroic.

The episode includes a slave girl.


And there you have it. Now, this is just the first draft of the game and I haven't actually tried it out yet. I'm a little concerned that as it is currently set up, it could lead to alcohol poisoning, as most of this stuff happens in pretty much every single episode. We might need to tweak the game as we go, but it's a start!

Enjoy!

Two Great X-Files Articles

Man... you can definitely feel it in the air. People are stoked about this film! Lapsed X-Philes are being born again! Rejoice!

People are starting to talk and think about the X-Files in a way that they haven't in years, and there has been a small handful of great analytical articles that have recently been written about the show.



For example, http://www.popmatters.com/ recently posted a fantastic piece called, "Not Just a Fluke: How Darin Morgan Saved the X-Files" by Jonathan Kirby. You can check it out here.



Then, over at http://www.culturemagazine.ca/, you can check out an article written by yours truly, titled, "The X-Files: A Delicate Modernism". You'll find it here. This is the image that accompanied the article:





Hopefully we will continue to have a nice stream of articles like these to keep us busy until the film is released next summer!

X-Files: The Complete Series Box Set

On sale as of today: How badly do I want this? Very, Very badly.

Chances of my wife letting my buy it when I already own every season as well as multiple copies of the film in multiple formats... not likely.

The X-Files 2: What We Know So Far

Alright, so we know that The X-Files 2 is definitely going to happen, but as far as details go, we really don't have much to go on at this point. Here is a quick summary of what we do know so far:

• The film was written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, and will be directed by Carter.

• It will star Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny.

• The movie will be released on July 25, 2008.

• Shooting will begin on Dec 10, in Vancouver, B.C.

• The sequel will be a "stand-alone story and supernatural thriller that takes the complicated relationship between Mulder and Scully in new directions."

• I've contacted William B. Davis through his website and asked if he has been contacted regarding the film. He responded that, "so far there is no sign of any of the Canadians being in the new movie." (The link to Mr. Davis website is included in the links section of this site. I encourage you to check it out.)

For now, that's about all we know.

Will Doggett and Reyes make an appearance? How will baby William be dealt with? How about the fact that when we last saw Mulder and Scully, they were on the run from the government? Will the film take place directly after the events of season nine, or will it reflect the years that have passed since the end of the series? Hopefully in the coming month's we will have all of these questions answered.

And when we do, you'll read it here first.

Welcome to The Impossible Scenario

The rumours had been kicking around for months (years actually). Then last summer Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz suggested that there was, perhaps, a script in the works. Soon David Duchovney was making vague references to the very real possibility of a film. In mid-August, Gillian Anderson announced that she would no longer be appearing in the movie Helen, which she had been scheduled to star in. Anderson's withdrawel from Helen was the best evidence yet that a new X-Files film really might become a reality. All evidence seemed to suggest that it was going to happen, but in the wacky world of Hollywood, nothing is a definite, rumours can never be trusted and deals can always fall through. In other words, when it comes to the Hollywood rumour mill, it's best to trust no one.

X-Philes across the globe waited with baited breath as summer turned to fall, but no news was heard, no gossip leaked. It was a long three months.

Then, on November 1, 2007, the official announcement we had all been waiting years for was finally made. Fans everywhere breathed a collective sigh of relief. The impossible scenario has become a reality: The X-Files 2 is going to be made. (Check out the Variety article here.)

Over the next seven months, as we all collectively count down to the film's June release, I'm going to do my best to track down as much info as possible about the film. I have been thinking about putting this blog together for months, but refused to commit myself until there was official confirmation that the movie was going to be a reality.

Well, I got my confirmation, and so here's the blog.

I look forward to communicating with the thousands of X-Philes out there, as well as providing them with a one stop shop for all things X-Files 2. I am so insanely excited that this film is being made, and I know you are too. So stop by often, drop me a line with any news you come across, and start re-watching those old episodes, because folks... The X-Files 2 is on the way!!!!

Let the celebrations begin.