Movies
I Want To Believe There Will Be A Third ‘X-Files’ Movie
I absolutely hated Twentieth Century Fox’s X-Files: I Want to Believe, their 2008 sequel to the well-aged 1998 film adaptation of “The X-Files” television series.
I Want to Believe was putrid (read my review), and I’d like to think it was because it was a self-contained story.
It’s no secret that creator Chris Carter, and stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson want to revisit the franchise for a third entry, and hope to dumpster dive back into the mythology that made the franchise so special. Personally, I want this, and I want it badly. Mulder and Scully don’t deserve to go out the way they did in that half-assed, rushed mess of a movie. And frankly, I feel like there are a ton of stories that can still be told. So do they.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, who starred in the classic Fox sci-fi TV series and the two movies as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, told the New York Comic-Con crowd that they’d be part of a third X-Files movie if it were to ever come into fruition, TheWrap reports.
“All the principals are on board,” including “X-Files” creator Chris Carter, Duchovny said during a panel discussion at a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the series’ premiere at the The Paley Center for Media in New York Saturday.
“Gillian and I want to do it, so it’s really up to Twentieth Century Fox at this point.”
Anderson told fans that if they want another film they should let their voices be heard.
“If it takes fan encouragement to get Fox interested in that, then I guess that’s what it would be,” she said.
Fox declined comment Sunday to The Wrap, but a third X Files movie is probably a long shot.
The original X Files made $189 million worldwide in 1998 and the 2008 follow-up The X-Files: I Want to Believe brought in $68 million at the global box office.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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