LOS ANGELES — Fox broadcast network, stuck in last place in the audience ratings, is reviving the sci-fi show “The X- Files” with a six-episode miniseries, reuniting the creator and original cast in a production starting later this year.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will reprise their role as FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, Fox said Tuesday in a statement. Production will begin this summer, led by series creator Chris Carter. An airdate wasn’t given.
A new “X-Files” gives Fox a recognizable name from the past to help rebuild its prime-time schedule. The network, part of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc., scored a big hit this season with “Empire,” about a family that leads a hip-hop music company. Even so, Fox has lost viewers overall.
“Few shows on television have drawn such dedicated fans as ‘The X-Files,’ and we’re ecstatic to give them the next thrilling chapter,” Dana Walden and Gary Newman, head of Fox Television Group, said in the statement.
“X-Files” ran for nine seasons on Fox and concluded 13 years ago. In the series, Duchovny’s Mulder played an FBI agent seeking proof of alien life on Earth, while Anderson’s Scully was the skeptical scientist questioning his theories.
“I think of it as a 13-year commercial break,” Carter said in the statement. “The good news is the world has only gotten that much stranger, a perfect time to tell these six stories.”
With more viewers watching on demand, on Netflix or tuning in to cable shows that debut year-round, TV programmers are ordering short “event series.” They’re hiring big stars to draw audiences and advertising, and break up the daily TV routine.
“The X-Files” premiered in September 1993. The series won 16 Emmy Awards, five Golden Globes and a Peabody Award, according to the network.
In addition to the series, Duchovny, 54, and Anderson, 46, starred in two “X-Files” feature films — the namesake picture “The X-Files” in 1998 and “The X Files: I Want to Believe” in 2008.
The first picture produced $189.2 million in worldwide ticket sales, according to researcher Box Office Mojo, while the second took in $68 million.
Fox has struggled to replace the viewers lost with the declining popularity of “American Idol,” and its audience is down 24 percent from a year earlier for the current TV season that began in September, according to Nielsen data.
“Empire” wrapped up its first season last week. The show, featuring Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, was the most-watched series among viewers ages 18 to 49, the demographic group that advertisers target.
