Decoding The X-Files

Carter created "The X-Files," and is its executive producer, its capacious brain and its tricky nervous system. The movie is equally his alien baby, though he delegated the directing and half the story-writing responsibility. He's smart enough not to hold all the strings all the time.

"People might think that I am obsessed with detail," Carter says, reclining in a leather chair in his office on the Fox lot. "People might think that I'm controlling. But all I really want is to make it good." On the glass coffee table in front of him is a map of Antarctica. Carter has figured out that the location named in the script would be inaccessible to Mulder. "It's right in the center of Antarctica, and we've got to change that." Seems he didn't feel the same need to explain why Mulder doesn't need to wear a hood or gloves--or how that Sno-Cat just happened to be waiting for him. Hertz?

Why do an "X-files" movie? "I felt that if we were going to do it, this year was the best time. The show's mythology had reached a point where we needed to do a big event. If I hadn't done a movie, I would have done a big (TV) event at the end of year five."

Once the "event" was underway, Carter and his "Ministry of Propaganda" went to work keeping it a more closely guarded secret than the final "Seinfeld." At the annual Toy Fair in New York City in February, McFarlane Toys was planning to display its line of "X-Files" movie action figures. Days before the fair was set to begin, the vice president of publicity at Fox called McFarlane and told them to pull from their display all figures other than Mulder and Scully. Orders for a "complete media blackout" came down from Fox, which got them from Ten Thirteen, Carter's production company.

Carter has also taken over the touring fan conventions, called "Expos," and made a deal for a tie-in with Oldsmobile's new Intrigue sedan--a surprisingly cheesy arrangement. Yet he has also suggested to his licenser that the logos on "X-Files" apparel should be printed only on the inside--crazy talk for anyone trying to promote his product.

But then, he's a weird guy. A skeptic who keeps Mulder's I WANT TO BELIEVE UFO poster in his own office, Carter once spent nine hours sitting on the ground in a Native American chanting ceremony hoping for a paranormal experience. He calls conspiracies "a common American feat" but won't admit to buying into them himself. The only subject that trips up Carter's measured calm is the sexual-harassment suit filed in L.A. County Superior Court by a female staffer in 1996. "It's, uh...it's a very confusing law being applied in a manner that feels like groping in the dark," he says, with an interesting choice of words. Court documents indicate a settlement is pending--one file Carter will be more than happy to close.

ADAM ROGERS, ELIZABETH ANGELL AND DEVIN GORDON

© 1998