Perhaps one of the biggest crowd pleasers of this year's WonderCon show was 20th Century Fox's presentation for the new The X-Files 2 movie. In attendance were series creator Chris Carter and writer Frank Spotnitz, as well as stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Right out of the gate, the group addressed the issues associated with the franchise's six year long absence.

"Because it'll scare the pants off of you," answered Carter when asked why this movie would be worth the wait. "Because you'll get to see Mulder and Scully together again, that's why."

That said, Carter did elaborate on the circumstances surrounding how the group came back together to make this highly anticipated film.

"I'll tell you why this movie was made," explained Carter. "It was made because of him [points to Spotnitz] and because of these two people [points to Anderson and Duchovny] who wanted to make it. Fox came to us very early on and said, 'Let's do a movie.' We started working on it and then there was a lawsuit and that stopped us working on it. And then we came back to it again when Fox picked up the phone and said, 'It's now or never.' And I have to say the people sitting around me are the reason we're doing it because they said, 'Let's do it now.'

Of course, getting back into character after such an extended absence is no simple chore.

"I had a really bad first couple of days," said Anderson. "I thought it was going to be really easy to step right into it. And I came to work very confident and I just sucked for a good 48 hours. It was harder than I thought."

"It was hard because a lot of time has passed for these two people as time has passed for all of us," added Duchovny. "And we want to honor the changes as well as keep them the same people. So I think we were both trying to figure out how to balance that — how to make them a little older and yet be the same people."

Luckily, the film's co-writer had an easier go of it.

"I was surprised at how quickly I reconnected with the characters of Mulder and Scully," said Spotnitz. "It was like missing people that I found. They've lived in my imagination for so long during the series and after an absence of six years it was like there they were."

"It was like no time had passed at all," added Carter. "Writing the names Mulder and Scully, which I haven't written for six years, was like the most natural keyboard stroke you'd ever imagine. It's been like a dream the whole moviemaking process."

Carter went on to confirm that Mark Snow would be scoring the film and that actress Amanda Peet would be playing a Special Agent in Charge named Dakota Whitney. Billy Connelly, who was glimpsed quickly in a teaser that was screened with blood dripping out of his eyes, "plays a man with really long hair," noted Carter cryptically.
Perhaps what fans are most excited about is the idea that the film would be a standalone story (these kinds of episodes were widely popular during the series' run) rather than tie into the rather convoluted alien invasion mythology created by the show.

"When we did the first movie we had an ongoing TV series," said Carter. "So we had to be true to the series and the mythology arc. And so that movie functioned as actually sort of a big version of the television series. We didn't have that problem this time. So we have a chance to do what I would consider to be a really big screen standalone movie."

But when the question of whether they would ever revisit the mythology arc in a film — particularly since it was established that the invasion would be coming in the year 2012 — was posed, Anderson quipped, "That's still four years away."

"Yeah, we've talked about it," noted Carter more seriously. "And we want to be true to the series and the mythology. But we want to make sure that we just do the best movies we can. And do what feels right like we've always done. I'd say that that 2012 date is certainly looming in our minds."

The untitled The X-Files sequel film will hit theaters on July 25, 2008.