Fox is looking to once again pull the aging alien corpse of The X-Files out of the closet. Variety reports that the network is developing an animated comedy spin-off series that will be called The X-Files: Albuquerque. Rocky Russo and Jeremy Sosenko are attached as writers and executive producers, and the show will also have original series creator Chris Carter and Gabe Rotter, who worked on the rebooted series, as executive producers. 20th Television and Fox Entertainment (all owned by Disney) are producing, and Bento Box Entertainment, which does Bob’s Burgers, will provide the animation.
The series is said to focus on a team of FBI agents in Albuquerque who handle the cases that are too “wacky, ridiculous, or downright dopey” for Mulder and Scully to look into. That seems a bit odd, considering the X-Files themselves were the cases that were too weird for the FBI. Let’s not forget that The X-Files could get extremely weird and wacky on its own accord, with some episodes easily veering into comedy themselves.
The X-Files: Albuquerque is still in very early development, with Fox only committing to a script and presentation, meaning it may never move past that. Considering one of Russo and Sosenko’s past efforts was the abhorrent Movie 43, it’s hard to get very excited about this.
Animated comedy spin-offs of popular nerd franchises might be the next hot thing. CBS All Access just launched Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Disney is releasing a Lego Star Wars Christmas special. Maybe next we’ll get a Game of Thrones cartoon featuring the team of stable hands in charge of taking care of Daenerys’ dragon’s excrement.
