Surely anyone who watched The X-Files in the 1990s would be familiar with the name Chris Carter, as it was used at the beginning of almost every episode. But not everyone knows how his career developed before and after this series.
Early years
Chris Carter was born October 13, 1956 in Balflower, California. He attended California State University and graduated in journalism in 1979. He started his career at Surfing Magazine in San Clemente and became its editor at the age of 28.
Getting Started on TV
In 1983, Carter started dating Dory Pearson. The connections of a new acquaintance at the W alt Disney Studios contributed to the fact that its chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg hired the future famous director to work. He began writing screenplays for television films for The B. R. A. T. Patrol in 1986 and Meet the Munceys in 1988. Carter has worked extensively in the contemporary teen comedy genre. Even though he enjoyed his work, he felt that the drama really attracted him.
The X-Files and success
Inspiration for the new series Carterdrew from the craze of Americans ufology. At that time, the statistics were as follows: 3% of the population believed that they were abducted by aliens. Up to this point, fantasy books and Chris Carter had been incompatible things. He was never interested in this genre of literature, stating that he briefly read one novel each by Ursulua K. Le Guin and Robert A. Heinlein. However, he came up with his own characters and prepared an 18-page script for the first series. The series will be called The X-Files. With Roth's help, he was able to arrange a meeting with the producers, but they reluctantly agreed to film the pilot episode. No one even thought that the project would become perhaps the most famous series filmed in the genre of science fiction.
After casting Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as lead actors, Carter was given a $2 million budget to produce the pilot episode. The episode aired Friday night on FOX and received impressive ratings. Carter was given the green light to film the first season of 24 episodes. A second and a third followed. They brought popularity to the series and critical acclaim. At the same time, the director received his first Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Series.
The success of the show landed him a new contract with FOX for the next five years. In March 2015, it was confirmed that Chris Carter would take part in the revival of The X-Files as a writer.
Millennium
In 1996, Carter began work on the series Millennium. The new project was based on a popular episode from the second season of The X-Files, which he wrote himself. It focused on a sexually motivated serial killer. This series was also inspired by the works of Nostradamus and the growing interest in eschatology on the eve of the new millennium.
The series received high critical acclaim and a People's Choice Award for "Favorite New Episode in a Drama TV Series". At the start of the second season, Carter handed over control of the series to Glen Morgan and James Wong, with whom he also worked on several seasons of The X-Files. However, despite a promising start, Millennium's ratings after the pilot remained low, and the project was soon closed.
Other projects
Two years later, in 2001, Chris Carter released The Lone Gunmen. The series is a spin-off of The X-Files and details the story of three journalists in search of information that would expose the activities of the American government. The project did not justify the hopes that were placed on it. Since then, Carter has been writing and directing the still-unreleased film Fencewalker, which stars Natalie Dormer and Katie Cassidy as lead actresses.
The director has made several cameo appearances in his flagship series, first appearing in an episode of Anasazi as an FBI agent. He also took part as an actor in "The Lone Gunmen".
Despite his wide range of activities, Chris Carter remains widely known solely as a screenwriter of the cult TV series The X-Files.
