Report by Anthony Duignan-Cabrera

“It’s here!”

The teaser trailer from the forthcoming X Files movie, that is.

Fans at WonderCon were treated to the edgy clip Saturday afternoon which included scenes of dozens of FBI agents walking a line in the snow, poking the ground in search of something, led by the wild-haired Scottish comedian Billy Connolly (is there any other kind of Billy Connolly?). The trailer also includes glimpses of Agents Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) running, looking serious and pensive, leading to a crescendo with Connolly’s character screaming “It’s here!” and a glimpse of something vaguely human beneath the ice.

The riotous applause was a warm welcome for X Files TV show and film director Frank Spotnitz, series creator Chris Carter and the stars Anderson and Duchovny who had flown down from the shoot in Canada to San Francisco earlier this morning to appear on the panel at the convention. According to Carter, he had only had 15 minutes of sleep in the last 24 hours.

Looking a little weary and disoriented, the quartet were at first slow to warm to the conventioneer's big welcome, but the four soon got into an easy, if sometimes laconic rapport with each other and the audience. When asked what to expect from the new film, Chris Carter didn’t mince words: “It will scare the pants off you,” he said. “You will get to see Scully and Mulder together in a whole new way.”

When asked what it was like to resume their roles, both Anderson and Duchovny admitted it was a lot more difficult than they expected.

“I had a really bad first couple of days,” Anderson said with a resigned laugh. “I thought it would be easy. I came to work very confident, but I just sucked I sucked for a good 48 hours.”

“Maybe you should tell them what scenes you sucked at?” Duchovny suggested, in a way that seemed to hint at the off-screen tension that allegedly existed between the two actors during the show’s halcyon days. After the laughter subsided, though Duchovny was quick to agree with his co-star.

“I feel the same way, I was woefully unprepared,” he said “It was odd because time has past for these two people. We want to honor the changes but remain true to these two people. I think it’s harder to do a role that you haven’t done in a long time (because) you have an entire history and visual images (to pull from).”

When asked if it was difficult to write the script for the new film, Chris Carter said that “it was like no time past at all. Writing the names Mulder and Scully – that I had not written in more than six years – was like the most natural thing.”

Carter also said that he believed the X-Files was always about the search for God. “As far as a particular religion, there was no particular religion.”

Referring to one of the show’s iconic props, the “I want to believe” poster, Carter said “I think that poster on Mulder’s wall says it all.”

When asked what the most difficult scenes for the film were, both Duchovny and Anderson agreed that it was the scenes that they play together. “Only because we want them to work so well,” Duchovny said.

While Carter and the crew refrained from giving too much away about the movie, he did say that actress Amanda Peet plays an FBI agent named Dakota Whitney and Billy Connolly “plays a man with very long hair.”

Carter did hint that someone from the rich cast of characters of the show would make an appearance in the movie. When asked if Mulder’s foil Alex Krycek would appear – last seen taking a bullet between the eyes on the show – Carter grew cryptic: “We’re keeping a secret,” said the show’s creator. “Nobody’s ever really dead on the X Files.”