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More Mulder and Scully? The ‘X-Files’ revival is likely to continue in 2018, says Fox exec

After reopening The X-Files in 2016, Fox -- and fans -- want more. The network is working on deals with stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson and hopes to continue the series in 2018.

Fox executives have been clear about wanting to continue the popular X-Files revival, but so far, a second season has yet to be officially confirmed. The good news, though, is that the network seems to be getting close to ordering more episodes.

Fox President David Madden revealed Wednesday that such an announcement is likely to arrive “shortly” while speaking to reporters at a Television Critics Association event in Pasadena, California, reports EW.

The revival, which premiered on January 24, 2016, marked the series’ 10th season, and arrived more than 13 years after the 2002 season 9 finale. It reunited stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as their iconic characters, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, respectively. Over the course of six episodes, they resumed their investigations of unsolved paranormal cases before leaving us with a wicked cliffhanger.

The show proved that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder — or at least keeps it fond — by kicking off with big ratings and being the network’s most popular “newcomer” last year. At the time, execs left the door open for more X-Files, but made it clear they would have to work around the busy schedules of Anderson and Duchovny. That seems to still be the holdup, in fact. Madden told EW he’d hoped to be able to confirm season 11 at the TCA event but their deals weren’t done in time.

By making the tentative announcement, Fox is clearly optimistic that the necessary deals will ultimately be made. The network also hopes to bring fans more episodes in season 11 than it did in season 10. While it should be longer than six episodes, don’t expect the usual 22-episode order that some other broadcast shows get.

Assuming all goes according to plan, Madden is targeting a 2018 premiere for The X-Files season 11.

China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.

According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.

Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.

https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911

YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.

What is AV2, and why should viewers care?