Since The X-Files: I Want to Believe was released more than three years ago, the question I have been asked most often is, “When is the next X-Files movie coming?”

The box-office performance of the last film has made it difficult to answer. Some people said the audience just wasn’t there anymore. Others blamed the subject matter, the relatively modest budget, the lack of promotion, the release date, or the movie itself.

But wherever the finger of blame was pointed, I told everyone and anyone who would listen that it would be a mistake to count out The X-Files. “Don’t give up,” I kept saying, echoing the line Father Crissman told Scully in the last film.

Support from fans around the world, frequently spearheaded by the amazing team at XFilesNews.com, has been unwavering. Time and again, X-Philes have mounted imaginative and powerful campaigns to get the studio’s attention – to remind 20th Century Fox that they are sitting on one of the greatest franchises in history, a creative and commercial gold mine that has been left languishing.

Now we are only eight months away from December 2012, the series’ fabled date for alien colonization. I wish I could write today to announce that a script has been written, or even commissioned. Despite my cheerleading, cajoling and plain nagging these past few years, that is not the case.

But I am not writing today to say I am giving up.

I am writing to say it is not too late to make a third X-Files movie.

I am writing to say I still believe the audience is out there for an epic film that would bring to a close the series’ rich and complex alien storyline.

I am writing to say leaving the last chapter of this great story untold is a terrible shame and great waste.

I am writing to say I won’t give up.

And I hope you won’t, either.

Pretty exciting for the fans, although a statement like this means that a green light for the film has to be given, like, now (20th Century Fox has been hesitant as of late to get going on movies based on popular TV shows). It is common knowledge that The X-Files: I Want to Believe was completed in approximately seven months time, and the first film, The X-Files: Fight the Future, was completed in a relatively short amount of time as well. Spotnitz is right, in that it is entirely possible that a third film could still come out by December of this year if things get moving.

However, I really hope the script and production of the film isn’t rushed just to get it out in theaters by the end of this year. More than anything, as a fan I simply want a worthy conclusion to what is unarguably one of the most ground-breaking television shows ever created. As long as the creators of the third film do whatever that takes to make that happen, I’m behind it 100%.