Chris Carter (screenwriter) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Chris Carter
Carter at the July 2008 London premiere of The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Born	Christopher Carl Carter (1956-10-13) October 13, 1956 (age 68) Bellflower, California, U.S.
Alma mater	California State University, Long Beach
Occupation	Writer, director, producer
Employer	Ten Thirteen Productions
Known for	Creator of The X-Files
Spouse(s)	Dori Pierson ​ (m. 1987)​
Parents	William Carter (father) Catherine Carter (née Mulder) (mother)

Christopher Carl Carter (born October 13, 1956) is an American writer, director, and producer for TV and movies. He became famous in the 1990s for creating the popular science fiction show The X-Files for the Fox network.

Chris Carter was born in Bellflower, California. He studied journalism at California State University, Long Beach. After college, he worked for Surfing Magazine for 13 years. He then started working in television, making TV movies for Walt Disney Studios. In 1993, he created The X-Files, which became a huge hit. Its success allowed him to create more TV shows later on.

Carter has his own company called Ten Thirteen Productions. Through this company, he created three more shows for Fox: Millennium, Harsh Realm, and The Lone Gunmen. The Lone Gunmen was a spin-off from The X-Files. Chris Carter also wrote two movies based on The X-Files: the first one in 1998 and a second one in 2008, which he also directed. He has been nominated for many awards, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards.

Early Life and Hobbies

Chris Carter was born on October 13, 1956, in Bellflower, California. His dad worked in construction. Chris has said his childhood was "fairly normal." He really enjoyed playing Little League Baseball and surfing. He surfs with a "goofy foot" stance, meaning his right foot is forward on the board.

He went to California State University, Long Beach and got a degree in journalism in 1979. Because he loved surfing, he started writing for Surfing Magazine. This magazine was based in San Clemente, California. By age 28, he became its editor. Carter worked at the magazine for 13 years. He says this job taught him a lot about running a business. During this time, he also got into pottery as a hobby. He made many pieces of dinnerware. He compared making pottery to Zen meditation.

Personal Life

In 1983, Chris Carter started dating Dori Pierson. He met her through a cousin who worked with him at Surfing Magazine. They got married in 1987. Today, they live in Santa Barbara, California.

Starting a Career in Television

Dori Pierson had connections at Walt Disney Studios. This helped Chris Carter get a job there. He started writing TV movies for the studio. He wrote The B.R.A.T. Patrol in 1986 and Meet the Munceys in 1988. These scripts made Disney think of him as a writer for youth comedies. Even though he liked the work, Carter felt his true interest was in serious dramas.

Carter later met Brandon Tartikoff, who was the president of NBC. They talked at a company softball game. Tartikoff read some of Carter's scripts and invited him to write for NBC. There, Carter worked on several TV show ideas that were never made. These included a science fiction series called Copter Cop. During this time, Carter also worked as a producer on the show Rags to Riches. He took this job to learn more about how to produce a TV series.

Later, Peter Roth, who worked at another production company, read one of Carter's scripts. Even though that show wasn't made, Roth was interested in hiring Carter. Roth then became the head of TV production at Fox. In 1992, Carter was one of the first new writers Roth hired. Carter then started working on a show inspired by his favorite childhood series, like The Twilight Zone and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Creating The X-Files

Carter speaking at a microphone in July 2013

Chris Carter's new show, The X-Files, was inspired by Kolchak in its style. Its themes came from his experiences growing up during the Watergate scandal. Carter also got ideas from his friend John E. Mack's research on ufology. This research showed that many people believed they had been abducted by aliens. Roth liked the idea because of the Kolchak influence. He thought vampires would be popular, but Carter wanted a show focused on aliens. Interestingly, Carter had not been very interested in science fiction before this.

Carter based his characters on those from the English TV show The Avengers. He wrote an 18-page summary for his new project, which he called The X-Files. Fox first rejected his idea. But with Roth's help, Carter got a second meeting. Fox then agreed to make a pilot episode for the series.

After finding the main actors, Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, Carter got a budget of $2 million for the pilot. The show aired on Friday nights on Fox. This was seen as a difficult time slot for TV shows. However, The X-Files got good Nielsen ratings for its time. Fox then ordered a full season of 24 episodes.

The show became more and more popular in its second and third seasons. It won its first Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama. It also set a record for how much a network paid to air re-runs, getting $600,000 per episode from Fox's sister network, FX. Because The X-Files was so successful, Carter was able to sign a new contract. This contract guaranteed a movie based on the show and allowed him to create his next TV project.

In 2015, it was confirmed that Carter would be involved in a new, short season of The X-Files. This was a six-episode "event series." In 2017, Fox announced another ten-episode season. Both Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny returned. The eleventh season got mixed reviews, and its ratings dropped a lot. Gillian Anderson has said she will not play her character, Scully, again.

In 2020, Fox announced that an animated comedy spin-off of The X-Files was being developed. Chris Carter said he always thought there would be more X-Files. He admitted that continuing the series with Duchovny and Anderson is unlikely. But he plans to continue the story with the animated spin-off. The rights to The X-Files are now owned by Disney.

Creating Millennium

Carter then started working on a new series called Millennium. He developed the main character, Frank Black. Carter traveled to Seattle to find ideas for the show's setting. He also got ideas from the writings of Nostradamus. People were also very interested in the end of the world (eschatology) as the year 2000 approached.

Lance Henriksen was cast as Frank Black. Millennium began airing on Friday nights, taking over the time slot that The X-Files used to have. The first episode, "Pilot", was heavily promoted by Fox. It was watched by more than a quarter of all TV viewers during its broadcast.

The series also received good reviews from critics. It won a People's Choice Award for "Favorite New TV Dramatic Series" in its first year. At the start of the second season, Carter gave control of the show to Glen Morgan and James Wong. They had worked with him on Millenniums first season and on The X-Files. Despite its strong start, Millenniums ratings stayed low after the pilot. The show was canceled after three seasons.

The X-Files Movies

While the fourth season of The X-Files was being made, work began on the first movie based on the series. Also called The X-Files, Carter started writing the script during a Christmas holiday in Hawaii in 1996. Series producer Frank Spotnitz helped him with the story outline. Carter later went back to Hawaii for ten days in 1997 to finish the script.

Carter chose Rob Bowman, a frequent director for the TV series, to direct the movie. Many of the show's regular actors were in the film, including Duchovny, Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, and William B. Davis. The X-Files movie came out on June 19, 1998. It earned $189 million worldwide and got mixed reviews from critics.

Ten years after the first movie, and six years after The X-Files TV show ended, Carter wrote and directed a second movie. It was called The X-Files: I Want to Believe. This movie was filmed in British Columbia. It was released on July 25, 2008. It earned $68,369,434 worldwide. However, this film received mostly negative reviews from critics.

Other Projects

Chris Carter has also had a few small acting roles. He appeared in The X-Files episode "Anasazi" as an FBI agent. He also played a movie audience member in a later episode called "Hollywood A.D.". Carter also had a brief role in "Three Men and a Smoking Diaper", an episode of The Lone Gunmen.

In 1999, Carter started turning the comic book series Harsh Realm into a TV show. His friend Daniel Sackheim had bought the rights to adapt the comics in 1996. When Harsh Realm first aired on October 8, 1999, the comic writers were not given credit. They then sued Fox to be recognized for their work. Harsh Realm did not get many viewers and was canceled after only three episodes.

Two years later, Carter launched The Lone Gunmen. This was a spin-off of The X-Files that focused on three minor characters from the original show. The Lone Gunmen was canceled after 13 episodes. Its story was later finished in a crossover episode with The X-Files.

Carter has also been involved in writing and directing a movie called Fencewalker. It is not yet released and is set to feature Natalie Dormer and Katie Cassidy. In 2011, he started working on a police thriller TV series called Unique. However, this project was eventually stopped.

Carter then began working on the Amazon Studios TV series The After. The first episode was available to watch on February 6, 2014. The series was approved the next month. But it was canceled on January 5, 2015, with only the pilot episode ever being made.

Influences on His Work

Chris Carter has talked about what inspired his work. Besides The Twilight Zone and Kolchak: The Night Stalker, he was influenced by:

• Frankenstein (both the 1931 movie and the Mary Shelley novel)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Spielberg films, especially E.T., Schindler's List, and Munich
• Twin Peaks, which he loved so much he "could have watched that show every night."

Carter also said that meeting people who claimed to have seen UFOs or been abducted by aliens had a big impact on him. This was especially true when he saw his friend John Mack use hypnosis on someone who claimed to be abducted. He said, "When I was writing about the phenomenon, it wasn’t as a disbeliever – it was as a person who wanted to believe."

Awards and Nominations

Chris Carter's work has earned him many awards and nominations. He has received eight nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards. Carter has also been nominated for awards from the Directors Guild of America Awards, the Edgar Awards, and the British Academy Television Awards.

Film and Television Work

Film

Television

See also

In Spanish: Chris Carter para niños