Hulu Greenlights The X-Files Reboot With Danielle Deadwyler Starring, Ryan Coogler Directing

Danielle Deadwyler leads Hulu’s newly greenlit The X-Files revival from writer-director Ryan Coogler.

Hulu Greenlights The X-Files Reboot With Danielle Deadwyler Set to Star and Ryan Coogler Directing

The truth is back on the table.

Hulu has officially greenlit a pilot for a revival of The X-Files, confirming that Danielle Deadwyler will star as one of the two leads, with Ryan Coogler writing and directing the pilot.

For a project that has lived in rumor territory for years, this is the first concrete signal that the franchise is not just being dusted off — it’s being reimagined with serious firepower behind it.

Coogler, fresh off the cultural and awards-season momentum of Sinners, now steps into one of the most mythologized genre properties of the modern era. His attachment had long been reported, but this is the formal confirmation: he will write and direct the pilot.

The new series is described as following “two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents” who form an unlikely bond when assigned to a long-shuttered division focused on unexplained phenomena.

The structure mirrors the bones of the original 1993 Fox series, which paired Gillian Anderson’s skeptical Dana Scully with David Duchovny’s believer Fox Mulder. But the phrasing suggests tonal recalibration — not imitation.

Jennifer Yale (See, The Copenhagen Test) will serve as showrunner. Original creator Chris Carter returns as a non-writing executive producer. Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler will also executive produce under the Proximity Media banner.

Deadwyler is a commanding choice for this universe. Her performances in The Piano Lesson and The Woman in the Yard have demonstrated a capacity for emotional depth layered beneath composure — the kind of gravitas required for a series built on paranoia, institutional distrust, and existential dread. She is also set to appear in HBO’s third season of Euphoria and lead the upcoming HBO comedy Rooster.

The timing of this reboot feels less nostalgic and more inevitable.

Interest in UFOs and UAPs has surged back into public consciousness. Congressional hearings have legitimized what once lived exclusively in fringe communities. Presidents have commented on the topic. Steven Spielberg is developing a film titled Disclosure Day that reportedly centers on government-level alien revelation.

Culturally, we are once again primed for agents chasing signals in the dark.

The original The X-Files ran for nine seasons and spawned two feature films, embedding itself into pop culture as a defining genre text of the 1990s. But this revival arrives in a different landscape — one shaped by social media disinformation, institutional distrust, and a public more suspicious than ever of official narratives.

The key question isn’t whether the truth is still out there.

It’s whether we’re prepared to confront it when it doesn’t look like what we expected.

Hulu is producing the new series with Onyx Collective and 20th Television. No premiere date has been announced.

For now, the files are officially open again.