The star of the classic X-Files spin-off serial, which only lasted three seasons on Fox in the late 90’s, reveals that a Millenium film may be in the works.
Lance Henriksen, who played the part of criminal profiler Frank Black on X-Files and Millenium – both shows created by Chris Carter, and which focused on grand conspiracy mysteries – recently spoke at a press event for TRON: Uprising, to which he lends his voice.
“I think [a Millennium film is] going to happen,” he said. “I really do… There’s a big push on right now and there’s a lot of crazy people involved in it. They’ve written a book with interviews with everybody that was on the show including [Frank] Spotnitz and me… It’s crazy that you wouldn’t give it a shot. It doesn’t have to be a $30 million movie either. There’s a lot of fans out there in 65 countries. I can’t go into any other country without them wondering when the movie is going to be made.”
Millenium’s primary plotline dealt with Black and his gift: the ability to see through the eyes of serial killers. A former FBI agent, Black worked mostly for a private organization with shadowy and mysterious motives. His investigations only stumbled into the greater X-Files mythos briefly.
“Ever since 9/11, the world has changed so radically,” he continued, explaining why he thinks the show would work well, particularly in today’s world. “If ‘Millennium’ was made today with those characters, it would be a far more interesting show than the limited palette they had with serial killers. I love the idea of a non-judgemental character like Frank Black was… He wanted to know why and how all these things happened, but he knew that judging someone for what they’ve done would just get in the way of finding out things. Imagine that kind of morality and focus, like a master chess player. There’s beads on a string and suddenly you’ve got a necklace. He knew how to do it. It would be much more interesting now than it was then.
“When you trap a guy like Frank Black,” he said, “who has that kind of imagination and you put him in a world like Bulgaria where everything is in Cyrillic and he can’t communicate actively with a lot of people, he has to do it in another way. I’ve thought of how it could be done. You just keep moving the pressure in on him about this kind of terrorist stuff. A terrorist plot. The pressure keeps building and building and building until you realize that that pressure gave him all the answers he needed. You would be gasping for air to wonder what is going to happen to this guy.”
If a Millennium film is in development anywhere, there has (unfortunately) been no official word.
