Fox Loves Damon Lindelof's 'Alien' Prequel Script; Natalie Portman Interested?

Breaking news: Damon Lindelof frigging rules. Reports are coming in that the co-creator of Lost has just turned in his script for the Untitled Alien Prequel for director Ridley Scott and the executives at 20th Century Fox love it. Why do they love it? Well, because Scott originally budgeted the film around $150 million and Lindelof's script has a distinct lack of large action set pieces, thereby bringing that number down. Plus the script reportedly has a more PG-13 edge in terms of language and off camera violence – much like the original 1979 film. And finally, Natalie Portman has met with Scott's team and is at the top of their list for the lead female role of "a female Colonial Marine general." Hit the jump for more on the upcoming project and why PG-13 isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Vulture, once again, got the exclusive insider report on Fox's reaction to Lindelof's script. In addition to everything said above the jump, they talked to an insider who made it clear that a PG-13 Alien movie isn't necessarily a bad thing:

The thinking is that if the original Alien were released today, minus the F-bombs, you could still get a PG-13. Alien is a very Jaws-ian movie: There's no sex, and while there's lots of violence, most of it is off-camera. Maybe you'd have to cut away from certain scenes two seconds earlier, but it could be done.

That's certainly a good point. We already know that this film will be set about 35 years before Ripley and the Nostromo ever land on LV-426 and will explain the Space Jockey that the crew comes upon before John Hurt's character Kane is implanted by the Face Hugger. But what we don't know is exactly how many Aliens that will entail vs. how many humans and how many of each die. So if those numbers are lower, PG-13 could work right in line with the story.

If Portman passes on the lead role, Vulture's article says the previously reported Noomi Rapace of the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series is next on the list. Though Portman obviously is better known in America, I don't think Scott can go wrong with either actress. Both have demonstrated they can be total bad asses, but also super feminine. Plus, by the time this film comes out, Rapace will be more of a household name in the States because of her role in Sherlock Holmes 2.

So that's the latest on the Alien prequel. The execs love Lindelof's script, Scott is casting and hopefully we get the movie during the Summer of 2012. Now let's all make sure Lindelof goes off and writes a bad a Star Trek 2 script to boot.