The guiding principle of “The X-Files” was always that “the truth is out there.” But when it comes to the new film based on the series, out Friday, the truth is harder to untangle than one of agent Fox Mulder’s rambling conspiracy theories. In keeping with the paranoia-filled, “trust no one” theme that served as the backbone of the series, the folks behind the franchise’s second feature film, “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” have been guarding the secrets of the movie more closely than the government protects Area 51.
Precious little is known about the film beyond the fact that it is a PG-13 thriller set in the present day. It stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, who reprise their roles as Fox “Spooky” Mulder and Dana Scully – neither of whom appears to be inhabiting their old FBI special agent gigs, at least at the start of the film. The rest of the cast includes Amanda Peet and rapper Xzibit as FBI agents, while Billy Connolly plays a man of the cloth who may be having some kind of psychic visions.
Given the lengths people will go to get information these days, and the prevalence of blogs and Web sites devoted to uncovering and sharing spoilers, the dearth of details about “I Want to Believe” is astonishing.
A handful of fuzzy photos – possibly red herrings – as well as some unspecific call sheets and random location details are all that X-Philes (as fans of the series are known) have had to go on for the past seven months, since production on the film began. About all we know is that Scully is now a doctor at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, and that Mulder has re-created his famous basement office in his uncharacteristically rustic house.
Nothing is known about the plot of the movie itself – even though the creators and cast have given scores of interviews and made several high-profile public appearances, including one Thursday night at the SoHo Apple store.
While an unconfirmed blurb allegedly from the film’s novelization suggests that the movie involves abducted women and a clandestine medical experiment gone awry, there’s no telling what the movie will really be about. It can’t even be said whether the movie deals with a human or supernatural threat.
Everyone involved is under strict orders not reveal anything. Ask the filmmakers and actors – even the studio publicists – any question that might lead to disclosing an actual fact, no matter how small, and you’ll be met with a long pause, followed by either “I can’t answer that” or “We’re not saying.”
Series creator Chris Carter and co-writer Frank Spotnitz spent four months working on the script, finishing it last August and preparing to shoot through the fall. That’s when the rest of the team finally got to see the script, which was printed on red paper – as it had been for 1998’s “The X-Files” movie – to prevent photocopying.
“We worked on red paper this time [too], but because we found out that you can actually Xerox that, we only let certain crew members read the script on a need-to-know basis,” Carter says. “If you read the script, you had to go to a room we had created where the script was locked away in a safe place. You had to sit and read it at a table. There were video cameras trained on you so you couldn’t take pictures of it or call someone about it.”
“And you had to sign an agreement,” Spotnitz adds, “to say you wouldn’t talk about what you’d read.”
On-set in Vancouver last December, “we had a person dedicated to sides – the scenes that you’re filming that day – and she would Xerox them with your name on them and hand them to you in the morning,” Spotnitz says. “You’d have to keep them on your person the entire day and, at the end of the day, she’d take them back and shred them.”
This reluctance to let the script get loose even extended to the film’s principal talent.
“David and I weren’t allowed to have full copies of the script [at any point],” Anderson says, adding that she doesn’t remember the first “X-Files” movie being this secretive, and estimating that 98 percent of the crew never touched the full script.
“We got to read the full copies a couple months before we started shooting, and then we did a read-through of the whole thing, but other than that we just had the scenes that we were involved in.”
It’s a good thing she and Duchovny were so familiar with their characters. Anderson says that under other circumstances, one read-through with a new character would’ve been “more than disconcerting.”
Still, she admits that “there were moments along the way when I would have to say to Chris [Carter] or the script supervisor, ‘So, what happens before this? Where are we coming from? Because I don’t remember and it’s not in my script.’ “
Spotnitz concedes that all the precautions “made making the movie harder. “Most of the people making the movie never read the script, so they’re showing up to do their jobs and finding out what’s going on in the movie as we’re filming. It was not optimal.”
The script, meanwhile, was only the beginning of the subterfuge.
A look at the cast list on
IMDb.com shows that familiar faces like the Lone Gunmen and FBI assistant director Skinner are missing. When asked about that, Carter laughs. “It says some things that aren’t true” is all he’ll say.
And you’ll get no insight watching the recently released DVD compilation “The X-Files: Revelations.” The eight episodes in the two-disc set – which Fox Home Entertainment touted as an “essential guide to the new theatrical movie” – concentrate on things like alien abductions, psychics, vampires and freaks of nature. But Spotnitz says the episodes were chosen merely because they were “the best episodes that we ever did.”
Even Fox-sanctioned set visits with invited media were unrevealing. Movie site JoBlo.com editor-in-chief Mike Sampson spent three days on set with other journalists, during which they were given a tour of Mulder’s house and watched a scene with Scully and Mulder filmed in an office.
“We saw nothing and they told us nothing, but [we] still had to keep secret about nothing, which was really strange,” he says. “It’s almost like they knew we were coming to Vancouver and they just came in and cleaned shop before we got there. Nothing was even remotely telling. And I was looking.”
Then there are the two “spoiler” photos floating around the Internet: of Mulder and Scully kissing in a scene and a behind-the-scenes shot of what looks like a werewolf yukking it up with Carter. (Threatened legal action forced JoBlo.com to take the photos down).
“There are rumors that we planted false stories, photographs, call sheets, casting stuff,” Spotnitz says. “I love those rumors because it’s just serving our purpose. That’s part of what ‘The X-Files’ was – false information. We don’t want to clear the rumors up because we don’t want people to know. I think they’ll enjoy [what happens in the movie] more if it’s a surprise.”
Just about the only thing that Carter and Spotnitz are willing to confirm about “I Want to Believe” is that you will find out what Mulder and Scully have been up to during the six years that have passed since we last heard from them. Also, they say the movie’s got nothing to do with the so-called “X-Files conspiracy” – the existence of little green (or gray) men.
“This is not a mythology [story],” Carter says. “You don’t need to have been a fan of the show to find enjoyment in this, because it’s what we call a stand-alone episode, like the lion’s share of the ‘X-Files’ stories were over the years.
“The truth is that, at the end of the series, we kind of resolved or concluded the [mythology] story – which isn’t to say that we couldn’t revive it or re-explore it, but we had come to the end of the arc.”
All of this secrecy might be great for fans who want an untainted movie experience, but it could backfire if it’s just not giving people enough information about the movie.
“The film doesn’t have much buzz beyond ‘X-Files’ fans,” JoBlo.com’s Sampson says. “It’s so spoiler-free that there’s no buzz about it. You want people to talk about your movie, but they’ve done such a good job protecting it that no one’s talking about it at all.”
Should this cloak-and-dagger business translate into big box office bucks, however, it’s possible that we will see a third “X-Files” movie down the line.
“We’ve been reminded several times that we did say that Mulder believes the aliens are coming in 2012,” Carter says. “So that’s a date to remember. Put it on your calendar.”
Sure, Chris. We’ll do that. But only in pencil.