This film was only the second movie adaptation of a series produced for television by 20th Century Fox; the first was Batman in 1966.
A working title of this movie was X-Files: Blackwood.
The phrase Fight the Future was included as a tagline on some promotion for this film, although not all. The phrase is also not included in the title card that begins this film, leading some to assume that it was not meant to be part of the film's title. However, the use of the phrase as a subheading for the film's script suggests that it was indeed meant to be part of the movie's title, more than just one of several taglines used to the promote the film, and that it was conceived in this fashion.
The movie was filmed in the hiatus between seasons 4 and 5, and reshoots were done during the filming of Season 5, which meant that some episodes of that season do not revolve around Mulder and/or Scully, because either David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson or both actors were unavailable. Examples of these episodes include "Unusual Suspects" (in which Scully does not appear), "Christmas Carol" (featuring a single scene with Mulder), "Chinga" (which focuses primarily on Scully), and "Travelers" (in which Scully does not appear).
The movie plays an integral role in the ongoing storylines of the television series The X-Files, set between Seasons 5 and 6 of the series, but it is also a stand-alone film. Similarly, it can be understood by both fans, and viewers who have never seen The X-Files before. For example, the black alien virus is intended to be the black oil from the television series, but this fact is only implied by the appearance of the black substance and the connection is never outright stated. Due to its accessible nature, the movie was responsible for introducing the show to a new group of fans.
The bomb at the start of the movie has been frequently likened to the real-life Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995.
In one scene, Mulder urinates on a wall that displays a poster for the 1996 20th Century Fox co-produced film Independence Day. Apparently, writer and producer Chris Carter deliberately added the reference as he hated the film. Like The X-Files Movie, however, Independence Day also involved extraterrestrials and UFOs on Earth. It referenced The X-Files in a scene near the start of the movie in which a SETI employee talking during a phone call says, "I love The X-Files, too. I hope you get to see it." The line was not in the script used to film Independence Day and was presumably only added while filming the movie.
A special effects artist working on an alien figurine. Photo courtesy of Fox Pictures.
According to several May 1998 newspaper articles on the rising costs of film production, 20th Century Fox spent around 60 million dollars promoting the film worldwide, [1] and the production budget, originally said to be 60 million dollars as well, was eventually revealed to have been closer to 66 million. With a minimum expenditure of 126 million dollars for production/promotion, the movie had a worldwide gross of slightly over 189 million, of which the studio would have received around about 55%.
A lot of actors who appeared in this film have appeared throughout popular sci-fi/fantasy shows: T.W. King - FBI Agent on Roof - Andy Treadeau in Charmed, Gary Grubbs - Fire Captain Miles Cooles - Roger Burkle in Angel , Steve Rankin - Field Agent - Tara McClay's Father in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Lucas Black - Stevie - Caleb in American Gothic , One of Stevie friends in the film was played by Christopher Fennell - Steve's friend - Caleb's best friend Boone in American Gothic, and Terry O'Quinn - Darius Michaud - John Locke in Lost.
The vaccine that the Well-Manicured Man gives Mulder to cure Scully was given to the Well-Manicured Man by Krycek in the Season 5 episode "The Red and the Black".
Notes[]
Scully's exact address is: 107 E. Cordova St. Apt. 35 Georgetown, VA 24026
Exterior shots of the Well-Manicured Man's residence in London were shot at a house in Pasadena that was used as the exterior location of the Wayne Manor in the "Batman" television series.
When the crew was shooting the cornfield scenes, a teenager had managed to get past security and was hiding inside the cornfield. He was able to videotape the actors in the field and the huge white domes. He sold the footage to a local news station and thus revealed some of the key locations for the X-Files movie nearly a year before the movie was due to hit the big screen.
Of the three young actors playing Stevie's friends, only one had any previous acting experience.
When Gillian Anderson was filming the rooftop scene, she had an allergic reaction to the sunscreen used by the make-up department to simulate sweat.
During the first week of principal photography, the second-unit crew was stranded for 2 days on a glacier near Vancouver as bad weather conditions prevented the helicopter, which had taken them up there, to come and pick them up. They spent the night in the ice station set while the temperature outside dropped down to the low twenties.
The movie had a budget of just under $60 million.
In order to prevent the crew from making copies of the script and posting it on the Internet, the script was printed on red paper with the name of the owner placed diagonally over each page.
To protect the secrecy surrounding the movie, the project was given the 'code' title "Blackwood" during its production. However, the online X-Philes community quickly found out about the code title and started speculating about its possible meaning. Some ideas were even more out there than others as theories alluding to Edgar Allen Poe and MTV VJ Nina Blackwood were posted on the Internet. They were all wrong however, as "Blackwood" only refers to a fictional town in Dallas where some of the story is set.
The movie only had a pre-production period of 10 weeks. This is extremely short as a normal feature film of this scale would prep from eight months to a year.
In the newspaper that Mulder is reading, the article above "Fatal Hanta Virus Outbreak in Northern Texas Contained" is just a set of lines that are repeated over and over again. It reads "She said her husband was outside the house trying to get the girls to talk to him and allow him to take them into his home. While he amended the compromise into a bill that would have required a minimum of five cent refundable deposit, the assembly at the senate will be the first time buyers.
