Source: Glen Schaefer, The Province 

The X-Files is coming back home to Vancouver.

U.S. studio 20th Century Fox has announced that a sequel to the 1998 movie based on the TV series will start filming in Vancouver Dec. 10. The original series boosted Vancouver's international profile as a film production centre when it began here in 1993, starring the then-unknown David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as alien-hunting FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

The city's overcast gloom was key to the landmark sci-fi show's moody appeal. The series moved production to Los Angeles in 1997, and the first movie was filmed there. The series ended its run in 2002, and talk of a movie sequel has continued since.

 

Talk got a bit more concrete this summer when Duchovny, promoting his new TV series Californication, told reporters in L.A. that a new script had been written: "Gillian's on board and I'm on board."

 

This week, Fox announced that Duchovny and Anderson will reunite for a script penned by series creator Chis Carter and writing partner Frank Spotnitz. The studio also picked July 25 as the North American release date.

 

Carter will direct the still-untitled film. Story details are few, but word is that the movie will be a stand-alone "monster of the week" thriller, apart from the alien-conspiracy storyline that ran through many of the series episodes and the first movie. That means that many of the Vancouver-based actors who played characters involved in that conspiracy will be sitting this movie out.

 

"I'm not in it because it doesn't have anything to do with the backbone of the show," says actor Nick Lea, who became friends with Duchovny over the years as a recurring character, the shifty Agent Krycek. "Duchovny called me and said: 'Good news is I'm going to be up there for a couple of months. Bad news is, you're not in it.' The hope is that . . . if they do a third they'll put us all back in."

 

The new movie will also take the relationship between Mulder and Scully in unexpected directions.