Siete pronti ad affrontare la settimana più calda dell'anno?
Gillian Anderson e David Duchovny li abbiamo già visti (ma aspettiamo nuovo materiale riguardo a tutti gli altri appuntamenti che li vedono coinvolti) e quindi adesso è il turno di Frank Spotnitz.

Troviamo due interviste di Frank, una per IGN e l'altra per Moviehole.

Tanto per iniziare...
The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Frank Spotnitz Interview

"Science has to be humble in the face of the universe."

Australia, July 20, 2008 - Before it opens later this week, IGN Australia sat down with The X-Files: I Want to Believe's co-writer and producer, Frank Spotnitz, for a chat about the whys and wherefores of the long-awaited next film from the house of X. The long-time co-writer and collaborator with series creator Chris Carter gets into the casting of Billy Connolly, the potential for the sequel, how the film ties into the series and a few more choice nuggets of information that no self-respecting X-Files fan can afford to miss. Enjoy!

IGN AU: Season nine ended on a cliff-hanger. Does 'I Want to Believe' fit into the X-Files storyline sequentially?
Frank Spotnitz: It does. It picks up pretty much six years later, since we last saw Mulder and Scully – in real-time. It's not one of the 'alien mythology' stories – it's more like a standalone episode of the series; an individual case. But it is continuous and true to their personal histories and everything.

IGN AU: That's interesting, because David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are both a little older, a little more seasoned. Does the film take this into consideration? Does the plot fill in the gaps?
Frank Spotnitz: Yeah, it does – and we were very aware of that, actually. We first started working on the story in 2003; then the movie got held up – first by deal-making and then by some legal issues between Chris Carter and the studio. Then we returned to it four years later and we realised we had gotten older! [laughs] We had changed in that couple of years – and that made us really reflect upon how much Mulder and Scully would have changed as well.

IGN AU: Has the dynamic changed now? Is the film less action-oriented because of this?
Frank Spotnitz: I think the action and the scares are the same; fairly recognisably 'The X-Files'. But I would say the emotional story and the depth of the characters have changed a bit. As you get older, your perspective shifts.

IGN AU: Mulder and Scully have a kid now - William. The final seasons of the show involved this a little bit.
Frank Spotnitz: The last two years of the show, yeah, Scully had a child and they had to give it up because they believed the child was not safe; that aliens in disguise would come after him, so they had to give him up.

IGN AU: Does that get touched on at all?
Frank Spotnitz: That's something we address in the movie, but it's not what the movie is about; that would've brought us right back into the alien stuff.

IGN AU: Why was the decision made to steer away from the alien conspiracy plot line?
Frank Spotnitz: Well, I have to say ...because we could! [laughs] In the first movie, we really had to deal with that stuff. The TV series was in full swing, everybody wanted to see that stuff and it was upon us to create that big, summer-blockbuster storyline with the spaceship and so on. This time, we didn't feel we had to because the show was over. Most of the TV series was not alien stuff.

IGN AU: That's right – most of the series was bookended by the conspiracy episodes. Openers and closers.
Frank Spotnitz: Exactly. It was kind of a pleasure for us to do something that was simpler and would make sense and would appeal to people who might not know the show.

IGN AU: We've seen the two trailers now and we've seen glimpses of freaky faces and bleeding eyes. Is this a monster movie? A creature-feature?
Frank Spotnitz: I wouldn't – but as you know, we're being incredibly tight-lipped about what it actually is. But I wouldn't quite call it a creature feature and I wouldn't quite call it a horror movie either. It's a supernatural thriller. I always felt that The X-Files was sort of its own sub-genre, not quite like anything else.

IGN AU: What gives The X-Files movies, and the series itself, its own flavour? Particularly when you compare it to shows like Millennium and Dark Skies?
Frank Spotnitz: I think honestly it's the characters; Mulder and Scully. Not just how David and Gillian play them – though, you can't overstate the importance of that – but because of the believer/sceptic dynamic. They're such smart characters that the investigations can't help but be smart as well. That's what makes it feel different from anything else; it's both a scary experience but also an intellectual investigation.

IGN AU: Is that why the series has persisted so long?
Frank Spotnitz: I think that's one reason. I also think that it was also the genius of Chris' original concept – that anything could be scary and that it's about the limits of what we understand. The truth is out there. I think even the most die-hard sceptics among us sense there's something more to the world than we know. Science has to be humble in the face of the universe. And it really could go on for a while. There are still stories The X-Files has to tell.

IGN AU: That's an interesting point. Do you see this being a restart for the series?
Frank Spotnitz: I would love to keep doing these – and it all depends on how the movie does. We wrote this movie recognising that you can't take anything for granted; there might not be any more after this. We were intent on making it a really good movie and being satisfied that, if this were the last one, it would be a good story and that we left Mulder and Scully in a place that we felt good about.

IGN AU: So this movie has a clear conclusion then?
Frank Spotnitz: It does. We wanted to give people their money's worth and make it feel like a great movie, period.

IGN AU: Did either David Duchovny or Gillian Anderson have any input on the direction the story took?
Frank Spotnitz: They had some thoughts after they read the script, but we did it just like we did on the TV show. Chris and I just went off and worked really hard on the story and then Chris and I very nervously drove it out to them to read it. Fortunately they liked it!

IGN AU: Billy Connolly is a surprise casting choice. Did he know what he was getting into? Was he a fan?
Frank Spotnitz: I don't know that he was a fan – but we were fans of his for a long time. We always felt he was underappreciated as a dramatic actor and actually had him in mind and wrote the part for him. Chris met with him and presented him the script; it was quite a bold thing to do, because we were trying to keep the script under wraps and take no chances with it – he wouldn't even leave a copy of it with Gillian and David!
Billy was about to get on a plane to London and he just gave him the script; and I guess Billy stopped in New York and he send the script back – with and note – and it just read, 'when do we start?'

IGN AU: Wow.
Frank Spotnitz: Yeah! We certainly could've turned to some other great actors if he'd said no, but he was our first choice for sure. He was incredibly prepared in every scene and always good. He's one of those incredibly reliable actors. It was his work in 'Mrs. Brown' that got us – that was about ten years ago.

IGN AU: Visually, Fight the Future had an epic scale in some sequences that was quite different from the rest of the series – it was clearly a film, not an extended episode. Does 'I Want to Believe' go for those blockbuster moments?
Frank Spotnitz: It's more intimate for sure – and that's what we wanted to do. We didn't want a bit sci-fi epic; we wanted a more personal, creepy ...I'd even say disturbing... story. That was the scale and feel that we felt was appropriate. With The X-Files, it's always the psychological angle – what you're imagining – that's important. It's scarier than what you actually see – and I think this movie holds true to that.

IGN AU: What episodes – if any – did you revisit during the writing process?
Frank Spotnitz: Y'know, we didn't look at any old episodes – and one of the hardest parts about coming up with the story was trying to find something that was sufficiently different from the 202 hours we'd already done. That was not easy, believe me!
What was really different about it was the emphasis on the characters of Mulder and Scully and their personal lives – which we did very rarely on television.

IGN AU: Will non-X-Files fans be satisfied? Does that even matter these days?
Frank Spotnitz: I think it does. I think if this movie only works for X-Files fans, it's not going to be successful. I think that was one of the things that was most exciting to us about doing this – to introduce The X-Files to a whole new audience. I can't tell you – as disturbing as it may seem - how many people I meet in their twenties who tell me they were too young to watch the show! It started on TV in 1993. There were a lot of people who were 4,5,6 who could not watch the show back then. We would like nothing better than to claim those people as fans now as well.

IGN AU: Thanks for all your time and good luck with the film.
Frank Spotnitz: Thanks, Patrick.

FONTE: IGN Exclusive Interview : Frank Spotnitz

Frank Spotnitz is as surprised as we are that another ”X-Files” movie is hitting the big screen. CLINT MORRIS talks to the former executive producer of ‘“The X-Files” and the writer/producer of “The X-Files: I Want to Believe‘” about why it took so long for Mulder and Scully to be recommissioned.

Did you ever think you’d be talking about another ‘‘X-Files” movie?
I have to be honest there was a period of time there where I didn’t think this would ever happen. It was a long time coming.

And how did it come together? Was there just a magical day where everything suddenly worked out?
There was actually. Chris [Carter] was having a legal dispute with Twentieth Century Fox over the TV series - that got resolved in January of last year; literally the next day, the movie was back on.

Was it easy to entice Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny back?
Yep, you know what? we all wanted to do it. What’s interesting is how all of us ended up looking at the characters differently due to the passage of time. It made it new again - like we could never have anticipated.

Was it hard to keep the plot under wraps - what with the internet and so on?
It was enormously difficult - as you can appreciate, because I know you guys have been following the filming of the movie. From day one we took enormous precautions to protect the security of the script - that included having ninety percent of the crew not even being able to read the script.

Once the production started we knew the script supervision was not going to be enough - there was Paparazzi taking photographs, and filming video, and people taking call sheets - so we had to resort to our own forms of misinformation in order to discredit any leaks that might get out there. We were essentially making it up as we went along. I have a feeling others may follow our lead because, ya know, we made it!

My wife is a huge X-Files fan and she can’t believe she doesn’t know anything about the movie (as opposed to the first film, where she knew the story back-to-front before she even saw the flick)
That’s great. It’s not that your wife wouldn’t have still enjoyed the movie, but there are some interesting things [in this] with Mulder and Scully with their relationship, and we just didn’t want to spoil the fun for anybody.

Robert Patrick/Doggett is out of this one. No cameo?
He is [out], I’m sad to say.

Is that because it’s more of a Mulder/Scully story?
Yes, it really focused on them. It’s a very simple story, I have to say. A pure story. There was a point there where it didn’t look like there was going to be anybody other than Mulder and Scully [in it] - that’s not the case, but I’m not going to say who returns. I would hope [to bring Robert back sometime]. It depends on how many more movies there are but I am a huge Robert Patrick fan.

Speaking of, do you have plans for more movies?
You know, I wrote this movie and made it as if it could be the last time we see Mulder and Scully. We were determined to tell the story we wanted to tell and make it as good as we can. But having said that, we definitely left it open - there definitely could be more movies, depending on how this one performs at the box office.

Did the script change much over the years?
Well, yeah. I started work on it in 2003 and then it got shelved for four years - during that time I lost all of my notes. We had to then work on it from memory. Though the X-File remained the same in all versions of the script, it’s a different movie than what it would’ve been. Chris and I were a little older, and we realized Mulder and Scully would be a little older - we all started to look at their relationship in a totally different way, I have to say. Kinda surprising that people you wrote about for 202 hours on television you’d find you have a lot of new things to say about.

Is it true that Chris is the one that always wanted to keep Mulder and Scully apart, but you’re the one that wanted them together?
No, not really true, I think for the first five years we were extremely against any kind of physical display - we didn’t want to domesticate Mulder and Scully, and I think that’s still true. I remember we’d have huge debates about whether or not it’s too much to have them touch fingers. After that first movie, with that scene in the hallway where they almost kissed, you knew that, although they didn’t kiss, that that was the intention and the desire, so it was just a matter of time [before they'd get together].

Amanda Peet is one of my favourites. How was she?
She was fantastic - and I have to tell you, she was our first choice for that part, and Billy Connolly was our first choice [for his part]. We really did get the cast we dreamed of. We wanted someone in Amanda that could have the same kind of authority and intelligence that Gillian has - that’s very hard to come by, believe me.

Are you taking the film to Comic Con?
Ah, you know, interestingly FOX has not scheduled us at Comic Con - even though it’s the opening day of the film in the United States - but Chris and I will be there, because there’s a comic book being launched by DC Wildstorm.

On another note, any chance of a Millennium film in the future?
It’s funny, Chris and I have done a lot of appearances over the last seven months, and we’re always - always!- asked about a Millennium movie. Funnily enough, there doesn’t seem to be any interest on the part of the studio [Laughs]. It’s something we would definitely be interested in, but it’s going to take a massive appeal by fans to get it up.

Any limitations to doing this movie - compared to the first X-Files movie?
Well, it’s a much more intimate film than the first one - the first one was a big-budget special-effects type movie. This is much more intimate - a more personal story - but it’s the movie we wanted to make. We wanted it to be of the classic X-Files vein where we scare you with things you don’t see - and I think it’s pretty disturbing in that regard. I’ve been doing this junket here [in L.A] and many of the reporters have told me that they had to look away in certain parts of the movie. We really don’t show that much, but it’s the power of the idea of what you don’t see.

And do you have a favourite ”X-Files” episode?
Gosh, I have so many favourites - because The X-Files was so many different types of stories. All of those episodes that are on the [X-Files Revelations] DVD that FOX are releasing would be among my favourites, but there are others too - Humbug, Duane Barry - but it would be hard for me to pick just one.

Is there anyone you would’ve liked to have got in the movie, if you could’ve - even if they are dead?
So many… but I’d have to say my warmest affection is for The Lone Gunmen. I love those guys. Nobody’s ever really dead in the X-Files so I hope somehow, some way, we haven’t seen the last of The Lone Gunmen.

FONTE: MovieHole