Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in The X-Files: I Want to Believe Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

It's been exactly ten years since The X-Files: Fight the Future, the first cinematic adventure of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, opened in theaters to modest business, pulling in $83 million in domestic box-office and another hundred million in foreign receipts. 20th Century Fox probably wasn't demanding that series creator Chris Carter cook up a sequel idea, but the first film, which he had directed himself, was both well-made and well-received by the fans — everyone loves that climactic shot of Scully just missing seeing the gigantic alien spaceship as it flies off into a snowy sky — and rumors of a second movie have persisted ever since. Sometime last year, with the writer's strike looming and projects needing to be squared away for the future, the idea of an X-Files sequel suddenly went hot at Fox again, and as Carter tells it, the studio told him that if he wanted to make that second X-Files film, it was "now or never." He chose "now."

Even now in April, with the film a little over two months away from release, a tight lid of secrecy has yet to be pried off the project, thanks to the zipped lips of the two men spearheading it, Carter and his creative partner, writer/producer Frank Spotnitz. When Carter and Spotnitz took the stage in the main hall at New York Comic Con on Friday night for a rare question and answer session, one of the first questions tossed out was from a nice young lady who asked "Will we be surprised by the evolution of Mulder and Scully's relationship?" Seems harmless enough, but Spotnitz responded by pausing for a moment, casting a glance towards Carter and then answering "I don't know." As the crowd erupted into laughter, Carter leaned in and added "Aren't you glad you came?" In fact, the only news-worthy fact that slipped out during the entire Q&A came when Spotnitz took the opportunity to announce that DC Comics will soon being publishing a new line of The X-Files comics, something that earned a roar of spontaneous applause and cheering from the crowd comprised of both X-Files fanatics and comic lovers.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in The X-Files: I Want to Believe Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

When they weren't refusing to answer questions about the plot of the new film, Carter and Spotnitz engaged with the fans on the topic of the old serie — its minutia, its impact on the culture and the toll that working on it took on their lives — and also fielded a number of cheeky questions about the sex lives of Mulder and Scully. One questioner asked if they were aware of the abundant "fan fiction" available online which, um, explores the possibility of Mulder-Scully sexcapades. "This is a PG-13 movie," a clearly embarrassed Carter said, provoking huge laughter from the crowd. "That stuff is way too racy. No, we did not [seek inspiration from it], but I appreciate the fan fiction and the ongoing... people are living much more hot and racy lives than I am." But is there a sex scene in this film? Spotnitz took that question and gave a rather garbled non-answer: "That's a rumor. She's [the questioner] talking about the love scene that David [Duchovny] and Gillian [Anderson] wanted cut from the movie, the steamy sex scene. Did we cut it? Did we film it?" Later on, when asked if fan favorite Mitch Pileggi would make an appearance in the film, Carter brought the house down by immediately replying: "He's in that steamy love scene with Mulder and Scully." He also elicited some spontaneous applause from the crowd when he was asked what he thought the most iconic moment of The X-Files series is, and answered: "When he criticizes her for not reaching the pedals with her tiny little feet."

The duo was no more forthcoming about the film in the hour before the panel, when they agreed to sit for some quick roundtable discussions with the press. The first question put to them at that grill session concerned the recent leak online of a possible plot description of the film, by way of a description of the forthcoming novelization. (It hinted at the idea of a monster on the loose in rural Virginia, snatching up women seemingly at random.) Although one of the very few things known about this project is that it is definitely of the "monster of the week" variety, Spotnitz wasn't about to add anything new to the information pool. "All I can tell you," he said with a smile and a sigh, "is that there's a lot of information on the Internet and that's the latest. There's a lot of speculation, stuff is planted, leaked and for our purposes all that speculation is perfect because we don't want anyone to trust anything they read on the Internet. We don't want the surprise spoiled, so I would say trust no one."