As you probably know, Fox debuted a two-part trailer for their upcoming X-Files mini-series that will air in January of 2016. The spots dropped during airings of Gotham and Minority Report, presumably as a desperate bid to boost viewership, specifically for the latter that premiered to ghastly numbers last week. Anyway, Fox, of course, put these spots up online before they even aired on the West Coast, and, of course, they got posted and gushed about in every conceivable blog imaginable. If social network media is any indication, the return of Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is a much-anticipated event. But is it? Because we've been down this road before with this very franchise.
I mean, we all know how the Internet works, especially in terms of geek properties. Every franchise that comes back is gushed about as the best thing ever, complete with first look photos that bring about most, if not all, of the feels and are "perfect" in every possible way. But it was just seven years ago when Mulder and Scully did in fact return. It was not to television screens, but to movie theaters. And in July of 2008, The X-Files: I Want to Believe debuted in theaters six years after the end of the television show and sold less than three million movie tickets in America. The film was a relative bomb, with only its low-ish $30 million budget preventing complete disaster when it ended its theatrical run with just $68m worldwide.
More importantly, the film earned a stunningly poor $20m domestic off a mere $10m opening weekend. The film made as much on opening weekend as The X-Files: Fight the Future earned on its opening night. You remember Fight the Future, right? It was the big X-Files movie, one which was launched by 20th Century Fox as a major summer tentpole in June of 1998. With a $60 million budget, a major-league ad campaign, and a release slot right between the fifth and sixth seasons of the show right as its popularity had peaked, it was supposed to be 20th Century Fox's biggest release that summer. Moreover, it was something of an anomaly, as it was a theatrical movie continuation of an ongoing television series right as said series was still airing.
If the legend is to be believed, it was intended to be the series finale of the show. But Chris Carter returned for what would be four more seasons after Fox allegedly told him that they would continue the show with or without him. For what it's worth, seasons six and seven were among the show's best. The bombast and spectacle of the movie led to smaller-scale, more character-driven stand-alone stories that amounted to "Well, what sandbox haven't we played with?" one-offs. But I digress. At the peak of the show's popularity, The X-Files: Fight the Future, opened with $30.8 million on opening weekend and went on to earn $83.3m domestic (front-loaded for its day, but not unexpected) and $189mm worldwide on a $60m budget.
It was Fox's third biggest grosser that summer, behind Dr. Dolittle and the outta-nowhere smash There's Something About Mary, but it was still a big hit and a somewhat unique event in modern blockbuster filmmaking. The movie offered big scale production values, movie stars like Blythe Danner and Armin Mueller-Stahl, grisly "PG-13 but flirting-with-R" violence, a near-kiss between Mulder and Scully, and a five-minute monologue whereby a reoccurring character basically info-dumps onto Mulder to explain the big conspiracy up to this point just before he is shockingly killed off (rest in peace, Well-Manicured Man).
I'm not a fan of the picture. It plays like a dumbed-down, spoon-fed version of the show. It is both patronizing to the fans and condescending to general audiences while it puts Scully into damsel-in-distress mode for the entire third act. But it was pretty neat seeing the film on opening night with a packed audience of "X-Philes." The show would be canceled in May of 2002, limping to the finish line without David Duchovny, who was absent for most of season eight and all of season nine save the two-hour finale. It was time to go, as by that time 9/11 had changed the notion of government conspiracies and Alias was the buzzy show airing on Sunday nights.
A return trip to the movies was delayed for years due to Chris Carter suing Fox for allegedly owed profits (basically he accused them of selling syndication rights for super cheap to the Fox-owned FX network). But once that was settled we finally got our second movie. As promised, I Want to Believe was a strictly stand-alone affair, with no ties to the big conspiracy and no reference to the alleged alien invasion that was going to wipe us all out in 2012. The film, which brought back Mulder and Scully to hunt for a missing FBI agent, was almost entirely lacking in supernatural elements. It was memorable mainly for some grisly violence and Billy Connelly as a somewhat sympathetic pedophile priest. But no one cared. And I mean NO ONE cared. The film had the bad luck to open a week after The Dark Knight, which was problematic enough.
But couple that with an opening weekend occurring on the same weekend as that year's San Diego Comic-Con, and you cut out an enormous chunk of your potential audience. But that's not to say it all lies at the fault of the Batman and the SDCC crowd. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's Stepbrothers opened with $30 million on the same weekend as this second X-Files movie. But as The Dark Knight scored a then-record $75m second weekend and the likes of Mama Mia! and Journey to the Center of the Earth managed small-scale tumbles, The X-Files: I Want to Believe opened with just $10m. The film earned mixed-negative reviews, with many critics noting the small-scale production values compared to the last time around and the relative lack of any supernatural elements. Save for a rousing 3.5-star review from Roger Ebert, it was seen as an idea whose time had passed, with little in the offering to entice longtime fans to come back to the fold.
This wasn't The Simpsons Movie, nor was it The X-Files: Fight the Future. The film dive-bombed and earned just $20.982 million domestic, with 94% made in the first 17 days. Only the saving grace of a $30m budget and a $47m overseas take preventing utter disaster. But here's the fun question that's been on my mind for the last week. Is this much-hyped television series return going to net significantly bigger numbers (in terms of ratings versus tickets sold I suppose) than the movie sequel from 2008? And if it does, is that attributable to our current obsession with generational nostalgia? And if it hits big(ger), can it be argued that a movie like I Want to Believe released today, or at least in 2008 with a comparative social media push, would have been a much bigger hit than it was in 2008?
In 2008, America ignored and outright rejected the return of The X-Files six years after the show went off the air. It will be fascinating to see, with the obvious caveat that watching a television show at home for free is a different proposition from seeing a movie in a theater, if history is doomed to repeat itself 7.5 years after that ill-fated film. Can our social media-fueled nostalgia really be translated into quantifiable viewers and thus advertising dollars? Or is it just a matter of what amounts to a circular firing squad as a small group of hardcore fans spread excitement and cheer that will only be answered by other hardcore fans? The truth is out there, but we'll know soon enough if the truth is found to be lies (and all the joy within you dies).
