The X-Files: I Want to Believe is getting a second chance 18 years after its original release. This time, it is returning in the darker form creator Chris Carter says he originally intended.
The new version, titled The X-Files: I Want to Believe — Vrach Frankenshteyn, arrives on August 14 as an R-rated director’s cut on Hulu. The first trailer also leans much further into horror than the PG-13 film released in 2008.
The story reunites David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson’s Dana Scully years after the former FBI agents left the bureau. Several women have disappeared, and an FBI agent has also vanished. One of their few leads is a disgraced priest who claims to have psychic visions.
Carter says the original idea was to create something closer to a real-life Frankenstein story, but the theatrical version never fully reflected that plan. He described revisiting the film as a chance to restore elements that did not make it to the screen.
He had previously explained why the movie changed before its original release. During a conversation with Duchovny last year, Carter said he had made the film “too scary” and was told Fox wanted a PG-13 rating. The new R-rated cut is intended to bring it closer to his original vision.
I Want to Believe was the second X-Files feature film, following 1998’s Fight the Future. It was released six years after the original TV series ended and earned around $68 million worldwide, well below the first film’s roughly $189 million.
The director’s cut also arrives as the wider franchise prepares for another return. Ryan Coogler has filmed a pilot for a new Hulu X-Files project starring Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel. Gillian Anderson has also spoken positively about the new take on the series.
For longtime fans, August 14 offers something more immediate: a chance to revisit one of the franchise’s most divisive films in the scarier form Carter originally wanted audiences to see.