Himesh Patel is set for a lead role in Ryan Coogler‘s “The X-Files” reboot pilot at Hulu, Variety has learned.
Patel will star alongside previously announced cast member Danielle Deadwyler in the pilot, which was formally picked up at Hulu back in February. The official logline for the show states, “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents (Deadwyler, Patel) form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
According to an individual with knowledge of the project, Deadwyler and Patel will be playing wholly new characters rather than new iterations of Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully.
The role reunites Patel and Deadwyler, who previously appeared together in the HBO Max miniseries “Station Eleven.” Patel earned an Emmy nomination for his leading role in the series. His other TV credits include the HBO shows “Avenue 5” and “The Franchise,” and most recently appeared alongside Riz Ahmed in the Amazon series “Bait.” In film, Patel has starred in features including “Yesterday” and Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” with Patel and Nolan re-teaming on Nolan’s upcoming feature take on “The Odyssey.”
He is repped by 42, WME, Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole, and Tapestry London.
Coogler will write, direct, and executive produce the pilot under his Proximity Media banner. Jennifer Yale will serve as showrunner and executive producer. Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler of Proximity Media will also executive produce along with original “X-Files” creator Chris Carter. Simone Harris of Proximity Media will co-executive produce, as will Deadwyler and Patel. Proximity Media’s director of development Dezi Gallegos will also help to oversee the pilot. The pilot hails from Onyx Collective and 20th Television. Coogler and Proximity Media are currently under a TV overall deal with Disney.
News of Coogler’s take on the beloved sci-fi procedural first emerged in 2023, when Carter revealed that Coogler had contacted him about rebooting the series with a diverse cast.
This will be the first ever reboot of “The X-Files” but not the first time that the show has returned since it originally went off the air in 2001 after nine seasons. Fox revived the series for two more seasons in 2016 and 2018 with Carter and original series stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny returning in their roles as Scully and Mulder. There have also been two “X-Files” movies — 1998’s “The X-Files,” followed by “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” in 2008.
At this time, neither Anderson nor Duchovny are attached to Coogler’s pilot.
