The After

Production

In August 2013, Chris Carter announced The After, his first television project in eleven years since The X-Files ended. Amazon made the pilot available on February 6, 2014, letting viewers watch and give their opinions before the company decided whether to order a full series. The show did get an eight-episode first season, which was set to debut in February 2015. Carter hoped the series would last 99 episodes, modeling it after Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, a poem with exactly 99 cantos.

However, Amazon Studios cancelled the order in January 2015. After the cancellation, Carter explained that he wanted to adapt Dante’s Inferno and the entire poem, aiming to mirror the 99 cantos. He described the show as “eight characters in hell, basically,” and believed that was why the project fell apart. He also pointed to creative differences with Amazon executives, saying that The After was not a genre piece and that people find original, unfamiliar ideas frightening.

He noted that when something original succeeds, everyone wants to copy it, but trying something no one has seen before is scary, and he understood that. While promoting the X-Files revival, Carter added that there was simply a disagreement about the show’s direction. He admitted it was a hard sell from the start, that he did not create a series bible because he wanted to discover the story as it went, and that the eight episodes would have cost Amazon $40 million.

He understood their hesitation but still believed he had eight great episodes. Roy Price, Amazon’s chief, echoed similar thoughts, saying not everything works out and that the cancellation was not about money. He called the concept tough and hard to crack, leaving open the possibility that it might come together someday.