By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer
LOS ANGELES - The truth is finally out there about the new "X-Files"
movie title.
The second big-screen spinoff of the paranormal TV adventure will be
called "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," Chris Carter, the series'
creator and the movie's director and co-writer, told The Associated
Press.
Distributor 20th Century Fox signed off on the title Wednesday.
The title is a familiar phrase for fans of the series that starred
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents chasing after aliens
and supernatural happenings. "I Want to Believe" was the slogan on a
poster Duchovny's UFO-obsessed agent Fox Mulder had hanging in the
cluttered basement office where he and Anderson's Dana Scully worked.
"It's a natural title," Carter said in a telephone interview Tuesday
during a break from editing the film. "It's a story that involves the
difficulties in mediating faith and science. `I Want to Believe.' It
really does suggest Mulder's struggle with his faith."
"I Want to Believe" comes 10 years after the first film and six years
after the finale of the series, whose opening credits for much of its
nine-year run featured the catch-phrase "the truth is out there."
Due in theaters July 25, the movie will not deal with aliens or the
intricate mythology about interaction between humans and
extraterrestrials that the show built up over the years, Carter said.
Instead, it casts Mulder and Scully into a stand-alone, earth-bound
story aimed at both serious "X-Files" fans and newcomers, he said.
"It has struck me over the last several years talking to college-age
kids that a lot of them really don't know the show or haven't seen
it," Carter said. "If you're 20 years old now, the show started when
you were 4. It was probably too scary for you or your parents wouldn't
let you watch it. So there's a whole new audience that might have
liked the show. This was made to, I would call it, satisfy everyone."
Hardcore fans need not worry that the movie will be going back to
square one, though, Carter said. The movie will be true to the spirit
of the show and everything Mulder and Scully went through, he said.
"The reason we're even making the movie is for the rabid fans, so we
don't want to insult them by having to take them back through the
concept again," Carter said.
Carter said he settled on "I Want to Believe" from the time he and co-
writer Frank Spotnitz started on the screenplay. It took so long to go
public with it because studio executives wanted to make sure it was a
marketable title, he said.
The filmmakers have kept the story tightly under wraps to prevent plot
spoilers from leaking on the Internet, a phenomenon that barely
existed when the first movie came out in 1998.
"We went to almost comical lengths to keep the story a secret," Carter
said. "That included allowing only the key crew members to read the
script, and they had to read it in a room that had video cameras
trained on them. It was a new experience."
___
20th Century Fox is owned by News Corp.
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