It's hard to believe but it's actually happening, Ridley Scott has taken the role of director for the new Alien prequel. Like Michael Schumacher returning to Formula 1, he hinges some the good parts of his career on this return to familiar ground, for what people remember and love about Alien could be tarnished by returning to the franchise if he fails.

Then again people may ignore failure and the original will still stand strong in his career, after all it's not as if he hasn't delivered great films since is it?

So with the news that Ridley Scott is directing the film comes word that the writer will be Jon Spaihts who has fast become a guy to go to for space thrillers it would seem as he has a good number in development for some big names.

According to the Variety article he received the role after he pitched his idea to Scott's production company.

All we know so far is that it's a prequel and that Ridley Scott wants to direct it, and surely that has to be enough to keep us interested for now, it is for me. I think it's something very surprising but at the same time it's wonderful news for the franchise. Could he save it and we see another Alien series of films?

Well one barrier to that idea is the fact that this film is a prequel to the original, so making a new franchise off the back of this story might be difficult as this should tie nicely in with the first Alien.

Perhaps they'll branch it off, but I could never see them considering a remake of the existing Alien film, not even Hollywood would try that would they? It's either got to be a branched off franchise, or they'll move to the sequels of the original franchise, still, that's quite a big leap.

Great news that he's on board for the prequel, but doesn't this put tons of pressure on him to do as well or exceed what he delivered with Alien?