Ever since “Prometheus” ended, the rumors have swirled about a sequel. Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender (at least his head) are the only two survivors from the and Ridley Scott’s sort of prequel to “Alien” seemed to be destined to see sequels. Except that might not be the case. Here’s a rundown on what happened so far. Jon Spaihts wrote the original draft of the script and had the film tie directly into “Alien” with the ship flying at the end being the one that Ripley found in that film. But Fox wanted more than one prequel so they brought in “Lost” writer Damon Lindelof to rework the script. Spaihts said he had talked with Scott about continuing the story, so it seems a little odd that Fox would remove him. Lindelof’s changes to the script have been met with mixed reviews. But here’s what he had to say about the film to Slash Film:
“The unglamorous truth is this: During the creative process of Prometheus, all involved (that includes Fox and Ridley) had a strong desire for this film to launch off in its own way so that by the end, it would not connect directly to the original Alien, but instead run parallel to it. This is something that I talked about many, many times in the press burst around the release of the movie. As you probably remember, there was a lot of interest as to whether Prometheus was a “prequel” — the answer was, “Yes. Sort of. But if there was a sequel to Prometheus, it would not be Alien.”
Taking the strong foundation that Jon Spaihts had already written, I worked on the script to this end — and yes, during that process, Ridley did occasionally riff on what he felt might happen next as Shaw and David’s Head ventured off of LV-223 in search of wherever The Engineers had come from.
After the movie came out and discussions began about a possible sequel, I was already neck deep in writing and producing Tomorrowland with Brad Bird. I have found, unfortunately, that if I take on too many projects at one time, there is a higher probability of those projects sucking. And contrary to popular belief, I do not want anything I work on to suck. I really don’t. I care about these stories deeply — not just as a writer, but as a fan. It might not always feel that way to the audience, but I swear to God it is true. It also so happens that Ridley was about to embark on directing his next movie, The Counselor, and had another one, Child 44 lined up right behind it. The conclusion was obvious — In the best interest of the franchise, it was best to take myself out of the running before I had to suffer the embarrassment of potentially not even being offered it.
And that it is the complete (if not somewhat boring) truth.”
The problem now is that apparently they don’t know where to take the story and Fox executives are freaking out about that.
Lukas Eggen can be reached at eggen.lukas@gmail.com.
Lukas Eggen 