The X-Files 2 Gets A Title

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

The truth is finally out there about the new "X-Files" movie title.

The second big-screen spinoff of the paranormal TV adventure will be called "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," Chris Carter, the series' creator and the movie's director and co-writer, told The Associated Press.

Distributor 20th Century Fox signed off on the title Wednesday.

The title is a familiar phrase for fans of the series that starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents chasing after aliens and supernatural happenings. "I Want to Believe" was the slogan on a poster Duchovny's UFO-obsessed agent Fox Mulder had hanging in the cluttered basement office where he and Anderson's Dana Scully worked.

"It's a natural title," Carter said in a telephone interview Tuesday during a break from editing the film. "It's a story that involves the difficulties in mediating faith and science. `I Want to Believe.' It really does suggest Mulder's struggle with his faith."

"I Want to Believe" comes 10 years after the first film and six years after the finale of the series, whose opening credits for much of its nine-year run featured the catch-phrase "the truth is out there."

Due in theaters July 25, the movie will not deal with aliens or the intricate mythology about interaction between humans and extraterrestrials that the show built up over the years, Carter said.

Instead, it casts Mulder and Scully into a stand-alone, earth-bound story aimed at both serious "X-Files" fans and newcomers, he said.

"It has struck me over the last several years talking to college-age kids that a lot of them really don't know the show or haven't seen it," Carter said. "If you're 20 years old now, the show started when you were 4. It was probably too scary for you or your parents wouldn't let you watch it. So there's a whole new audience that might have liked the show. This was made to, I would call it, satisfy everyone."

Hardcore fans need not worry that the movie will be going back to square one, though, Carter said. The movie will be true to the spirit of the show and everything Mulder and Scully went through, he said.

"The reason we're even making the movie is for the rabid fans, so we don't want to insult them by having to take them back through the concept again," Carter said.

Carter said he settled on "I Want to Believe" from the time he and co-writer Frank Spotnitz started on the screenplay. It took so long to go public with it because studio executives wanted to make sure it was a marketable title, he said.

The filmmakers have kept the story tightly under wraps to prevent plot spoilers from leaking on the Internet, a phenomenon that barely existed when the first movie came out in 1998.
"We went to almost comical lengths to keep the story a secret," Carter said. "That included allowing only the key crew members to read the script, and they had to read it in a room that had video cameras trained on them. It was a new experience."

UFO Hunters Premieres Tonight

Tonight and every Wednesday the History Channel will have it's new show UFO Hunters.

The team's access to UFO evidence is unparalleled and their expertise allows them to quickly identify bogus claims of UFOs. Together, they use eyewitness accounts, scientific experimentation, documents recently released through the Freedom of Information Act and footage that has never been seen before on television to piece together compelling — and at times chilling — evidence of UFO phenomena. Join UFO Hunters Bill Birnes, Pat Uskert, Dr. Ted Acworth, and Jeff Tomlinson as they separate fact from fallacy.

One-Third Believe In Ghosts

News coming from the Associated Press this week.

About 34 percent of people polled by the Associated Press and Ipsos say they believe in ghosts, the wire service reported. That's the same proportion who believe in unidentified flying objects, exceeding the 19 percent who accept the existence of spells or witchcraft.

Forty-eight percent believe in extrasensory perception, or ESP.

The roughly one-third who believe in ghosts and UFOs is about the same as the 36 percent who said they are baseball fans, the 37 percent who said the United States made the right decision to invade Iraq, and the 31 percent who approve of the job President Bush is doing.

A smaller but still substantial 23 percent say they have actually seen a ghost or believe they have been in one's presence, with the most likely candidates for such visits including single people, Catholics and those who never attend religious services. By 31 percent to 18 percent, more liberals than conservatives report seeing a specter.

Three in 10 have awakened sensing a strange presence in the room. Fourteen percent, mostly men and lower-income people, say they have seen a UFO.

Spells and witchcraft are more readily believed by urban dwellers, minorities and lower-earning people. Those who find credibility in ESP are more likely to be better educated and white: 51 percent of college graduates, compared to 37 percent with a high school diploma or less.

- The Monster