Source: Variety
It was reported back in May that Carl Rinsch, a director of music videos and commercials for Scott Free Productions, was hired by Fox to direct a remake of Ridley Scott’s Alien film. Well, all that has turned around. Ridley Scott, the director of the original Alien film will direct its prequel!
Variety says the story for the prequel will be as follows:
The film is set up to be a prequel to the groundbreaking 1979 film that Scott directed. It will precede that film, in which the crew of a commercial towing ship returning to Earth is awakened and sent to respond to a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. The crew discovers too late that the signal generated by an empty ship was meant to warn them.
Now, many people cringe at the news of prequels. I am not one of those people. Sure, most of the time they don’t need to be made. But for me, it is fun to see what came before what we already know. In this case, it would probably take away from some of the mystery of the first film. But, just like after reading a mystery novel, we eventually would like to find out “whodunit.” I figure that after 30 years, four Alien movies and two so-so Alien VS. Predator movies, we are now at the end of the novel and should find out what happened on that alien planet with the empty U-Shaped ship. And who knows? Perhaps some of the mystery will remain in tact, satisfying those who want it left a mystery and those who want to finally find out what happened. Or, perhaps those who want it left a mystery should just not watch the film.
Either way, Ridley Scott is still a great director and I’m sure he’ll deliver something far greater than anything that came after James Cameron’s Aliens. I am not to sure about the screen writer Jon Spaihts, who has penned the sci-fi film Shadow 19 starring Keanu Reeves and also the film Passengers, since I have not seen either one yet. But apparently Scott and 20th Century Fox have enough faith in Spaihts from these works, so it is only a matter of time before we see whether or not it pays off in the end.
