Whenever Ryan Coogler steps behind a camera, Michael B. Jordan is never far from the frame. It is one of modern Hollywood’s most electric director-actor partnerships, echoing the creative synergy of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro or Spike Lee and Denzel Washington.

From Jordan’s heartbreaking breakout in Fruitvale Station (2013) to reigniting the Rocky mythology in Creed (2015), commanding the screen as Erik Killmonger in Black Panther (2018), and diving headfirst into southern gothic horror with Sinners (2025), the duo does not miss.

With Coogler developing a high-profile reimagining of The X-Files for television, sci-fi and horror fans cannot help but indulge in the ultimate dream scenario: What if Coogler brought Jordan into the basement office as his new Mulder?

The Price Tag vs. The Prestige

Getting Michael B. Jordan for a television series in the prime of his A-list movie star career would be notoriously expensive. Television budgets rarely support that kind of marquee headliner for multi-season runs.

Yet we live in an era where prestige storytelling frequently lures top-tier cinema royalty back to the small screen—especially when the visionary running the show is someone they trust implicitly. If Coogler stepped up with a limited-run order or an event-series model, Jordan stepping into the shoes of an obsessive FBI agent hunting things that bump in the night would instantly transform the reboot from a risky gamble into must-watch appointment television.

Jordan brings an intense, wounded gravitas to his roles that would translate beautifully into the paranoia of the franchise. Imagine him as a battle-tested federal agent stripped of his credentials, unraveling strange phenomena across forgotten American backroads, armed only with a flashlight, unmatched tenacity, and a folder of unsolved cases stamped with an “X.”

The Ultimate Twist: Mulder and Scully in the Shadows

Where this speculative pitch gets genuinely fascinating is how to handle the original mythology. You cannot simply ignore Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Fans have spent three decades watching David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson chase alien colonists, black oil, and government cabals.

Rather than relegating them to nostalgic cameos or tired mentor tropes, Coogler could deliver the ultimate thematic gut-punch: turn Mulder or Scully into the new Cigarette Smoking Man.

Think about the psychological toll of their journey:

• Mulder and Scully spent decades sacrificing their careers, sanity, and personal lives fighting the deep-state apparatus.
• What happens when the truth you finally uncover is so devastating, so apocalyptic, that you realize the conspiracy was actually right to hide it?
• What if Mulder didn’t stop believing—what if he finally saw the full picture and realized humanity would crumble if the curtain were pulled back?

Imagine Jordan’s young, relentless investigator cornering a shadowy silhouette in an abandoned parking garage, demanding answers from the syndicate pulling the strings—only for the match to strike and reveal a weathered Fox Mulder. Not an adversary born out of malice, but a broken idealist who stepped into the dark to maintain the illusion and protect the fragile world he once tried to shock awake.

Having Scully as the cold, clinical voice on an encrypted line—convinced that silence is the only pragmatic medicine left for humanity—would invert the franchise’s DNA in the most haunting way possible.

The Truth Still Needs to Be Out There

Coogler understands how to honor legacy franchises while boldly dismantling their sacred cows to build something vital and contemporary. Pairing that directorial vision with Michael B. Jordan’s magnetic intensity—and positioning the original icons not as heroes, but as the weary gatekeepers of horrifying secrets—would do something rare for a classic property: it would make The X-Files genuinely dangerous and unpredictable again.