The X-Files Return - Steve Duin - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com
For my money, the big film news out of WonderCon Saturday was the report that the Coen Brothers' follow-up to No Country For Old Men -- the favorite to win Oscar Sunday -- will be Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
But the event that drew a crowd easily topping 5,000 to Hall A at the Moscone Center was the appearance of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson to promote The X-Files 2, which will hit theaters on July 25.
Six years after the first movie and 10 years after the television series wrapped up, Duchovny and Anderson flew into San Francisco Saturday with writer/director Chris Carter and writer/producer Frank Spotnitz. Responding to a curious opening question from the 20th Century Fox moderator as to why the film was worth the wait, Carter said, "Because it will scare the pants off you. Because you'll get to see Muldur and Scully again in a whole new way. That's why."
Both Anderson and Duchovny -- who were filming in Vancouver as late as Friday night -- admitted they had a tough time regaining their balance in their famous roles as FBI agents investigating the paranormal. "I thought it would be easy to step back into it," Anderson said, admitting she was much too cavalier when she arrived on set. "But I just sucked. I sucked for 48 hours."
"It was odd," Duchovny added. "Time has passed for these two people and we wanted to honor the changes they've gone through as well as what keeps them the same people."
Part of her problem, Anderson said, is that she has always had an intuitive grasp of Scully's character, but that since the TV series ended in May 2002, she has purposefully sought acting jobs that won't remind viewers of the character. Thus, when she got on set, Anderson said, "My brain kept saying, 'Stop, stop, you're sounding like Scully.' That's something I didn't anticipate."
The X-Files 2 will also star Amanda Peet and Billy Connolly.
Carter and Spotnitz were also asked about The Lone Gunmen, the X-Files spin-off that premiered on March 4, 2001 and featured a terrorist plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the World Trade Center. "I was disturbed," Spotnitz said, "that if we could imagine it that our government ... didn't."
Carter later talked about imagination and horror in the post-9-11 world: "I can't think of anything off-hand that we didn't do that we wanted to do (in the series). We ended X-Files at the right time. There was a big change in the country after 9-11. I hope it's coming back at the right time. I hope the mood is right."
And when he asked about the recurring spiritual themes in the series, Carter noted, "I always thought of X-Files as a search for God. That's a big part of the inspiration. I want to believe the poster on Muldur and Scully's wall really says it all."
You do remember the poster, don't you?
To warm up the crowd for Duchovny and Anderson, 20th Century Fox also brought out Rachael Taylor (Transformers) and James Kyson Lee ("Heroes"), the stars of the upcoming horror/thriller Shutter, which is due out in March (click here for the trailer). Taylor and Joshua Jackson are newlyweds vacationing in Japan who stumble into the realm of "spirit photography," in which images of the dead are caught on film.
The crowd was asked if it believed in ghosts, an intriguing question given that a fair percentage was dressed up as characters from Star Wars. The better question was, "Do you believe in illusions?" and both Taylor and Lee did their workmanlike best to maintain the illusion that there may be something to these spirit photos.
"You've always heard the camera doesn't lie, and we're getting to the truth of that," Lee said.
Taylor, who grew up in Tasmania, had one of the better moments of the afternoon when she was asked how it felt to have a role in Transformers, given its prominence in pop culture. "I'm a bit of a dork," Taylor said. "I don't keep much of an eye on pop culture. I don't have a television."
The remake of a 2004 Thai film, Shutter is directed by Masayuki Ochiai.
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