Best Director nominee Ryan Coogler has been dropping clues about his long-mooted reboot of The X-Files, but now, finally, the truth is out there. The series has been given a pilot order by Hulu, with Coogler both writing and directing the first episode. Plus, we now know who will be filling the shoes of original series leads Scully and/or Mulder.

According to reports, Danielle Deadwyler, the star of films like The Harder They Fall, Till, and The Piano Lesson, will play one of the two lead roles. As per the series’ new logline, the show will follow a pair of equally decorated but dissimilar FBI agents who develop a close relationship when they’re assigned to a long-shuttered branch of the agency dedicated to investigating unexplained phenomena. That seems to set the series up as a sequel to the original, which ran for nine seasons on Fox from 1993-2002, and then for two revival seasons from 2016-2018. That also wouldn’t rule out appearances from David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, or any other former cast members from the well-loved supernatural series.

What Is ‘The X-Files’ About?

The series opens with skeptical FBI agent and medical doctor Dana Scully (Anderson) assigned to work with paranormal believer Fox Mulder (Duchovny), whose enthusiasm for working on the bureau’s so-called “X-Files” has left him confined to a basement office in FBI headquarters. A capable investigator, Mulder believes his long-missing sister was abducted by aliens, and that a conspiracy to hide the existence of extraterrestrial life extends to the highest levels of the US government. Together with the reluctant Scully, the duo criss-cross the country in search of the unexplained. The chemistry of the two leads led to the series becoming a huge hit for Fox; it became one of the first series whose growing fandom communicated with each other (often about whether Mulder and Scully should fall in love) on the then-nascent internet. After spawning a big-screen feature, the series eventually groaned under the weight of its own accumulated conspiracies, and both Anderson and Duchovny eventually largely departed the show, to be replaced with John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish). Cancelled in 2002, it (and Anderson and Duchovny) would eventually return with another theatrical film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, and a two-season revival.

Chris Carter, who created the original series, wrote 72 of its episodes, and wrote both of its feature films, will return to the new series as a non-writing executive producer. Also executive producing are Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler.

Ryan Coogler‘s new X-Files series has been given a pilot order by Hulu; no release date has yet been announced

via Collider