Damon Lindelof Rewriting Alien Prequel?

Depending on how you felt about the final season of Lost, this news will either excite or infuriate you. Word is that Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof met with Ridley Scott and studio reps from 20th Century Fox, and is now set to do a rewrite on the script for Ridley Scott's Alien prequel. Learn more about this (possible) development after the break.

The announcement comes from Deadline, who claim "studio insiders" as their source. Let's wait until official confirmation before assuming this as truth.

One quote stands out in the report: "...the exchange of ideas between them sparked a take that could well turn out to be a free-standing science fiction film." Free-standing? Does this mean the second Alien prequel Ridley Scott has in the pipeline will be unrelated to the first? Or could it suggest that Scott may stick with only one prequel after all?

I'm sure I'm about to incur the wrath of /Film commenters with my next assertion, but my biggest concern with this news is that the Alien prequel has been described as being somewhat of an origin story to the first film, and if there's one thing that Lindelof has proven himself incapable of executing, it's a satisfying origin. The Alien influence has been present in his work since the first season of Lost, but his abilities extend strictly to the build-up, not the payoff. It's possible that this won't be the case here, given that the film structure will allow him to properly plan out everything ahead of time, but after the frustration I went through, I'm not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Lindelof has two other sci-fi projects in the works, working alongside Kurtzman and Orci on writing both the untitled Star Trek sequel and Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens adaptation. Cowboys and Aliens will probably hit first with a projected release date of July 29, 2011, so I'll wait until then before assuming the worst about his non-TV efforts.