Alien: the early years?

Some cool news hit the internet this morning, the confirmation of a rumor that has been floating around for some time now. Today Variety confirmed that director Ridley Scott will return to space to direct the prequel to his 1979 classic Alien, arguably the best of the series.

According to the report, Fox has hired writer Jon Spaihts who has two space adventures already under his belt, "Shadow 19" and "Passengers". Spaihts is to pen a script which is said to focus around the empty ship and space jockey featured in the original film. This would support comments Scott had made previously regarding his interest in returning to the franchise, wanting to return "to where the alien creatures were first found and explain how they were created"


Each director who has tackled the Alien franchise has brought something different and interesting to the table. What Ridley Scott excels at is his ability to fully immerse his audience in other worlds, be it the neon dystopian future of Blade Runner or the Roman Colleseum in Gladiator. The franchise has taken a few turns for the worst in recent years (AVP films?) so if they absolutely have to tamper with it some more then having Scott return to the helm is the best news audiences could have hoped for.

Expect to hear more information soon.