Lindelof to Rewrite Alien Prequel
Wed, July 28, 2010 
Some interesting news coming courtesy of TOLJDA!: it appears that Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof has signed a deal with 20th Century Fox to work on rewrites for what will either be the long-awaited Alien prequel directed by Ridley Scott, or a standalone sci-fi film that will not be the Alien prequel and will most likely be directed by someone else.
Lindelof reportedly met with the studio and Ridley Scott (who, of course, directed the original Alien film) to discuss ideas for rewrites to Jon Spaihts' prequel script. Scott had been impressed enough with Spaihts' first drafts of the script that he will now be directing the film instead of just producing it.
With Scott back at the helm, Fox clearly wants this movie to happen as soon as possible, hence the signing of Lindelof, who along with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci successfully rebooted the Star Trek franchise last year and is currently working on the sequel. The trio also wrote the script for Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens.
Lindelof is a huge fan of the original 1979 Alien film, which would explain why he would even be trying to take this on while he's already deep into several other major projects.
It doesn't sound like a bad deal for him at all, since even if his stuff doesn't make it to the Alien prequel (the fate of which will be decided by the studio and presumably Ridley Scott), he'll get to use it for an all-new movie.
In an interview with MTV while promoting Robin Hood earlier this summer, Scott gave some details on the plot of the film, which will take place some 30 years before the events of Alien, will have another female protagonist, will explore the process of terrforming alien planets, and will finally explain what the hell happened to this guy:
During the MTV interview, Scott also expresses his disdain of the later Alien sequels and admits that he hasn't even seen any of Aliens vs. Predator movies. Since I'm a big fan of the first two Alien films who hated Alien 3 (and so did the audience I saw it with, who actually booed at the end of the film), didn't particularly like Alien Resurrection despite the awesomeness of Sigourney Weaver, and has never even bothered with any of AvP series...I'm glad it sounds like he's going to make things right with this franchise again. But he's Ridley Scott, after all, I shouldn't be surprised.
Reader Comments (2)
Not sure how I feel about this, I love Alien and Aliens and even thought Alien 3 was OK, but I'd prefer another movie going forward rather than back. Still, I know Resurrection in particular screwed up a lot of that potential and a Space Jockey origin has some interesting potential,. I guess we'll see how things develop.
This is the first news about an Alien prequel that's actually made me look up and pay attention, I really had no interest in it before, since I felt Resurrection screwed up any chance of making logical sequel to the existing series and I'm not sure retconning it at this point would work. I re-watched Alien recently and had forgotten how scary as all hell that movie was, especially the early scenes in the space jockey's ship. If that's something they want to revisit and style it like that film, it could work. I'm still iffy on the whole thing, but I'm definitely more curious about the whole thing than I was before.