Empire was recently able to get a few words out of Ridley Scott about his upcoming return to the Alien franchise. The director previously announced that he would be filming a prequel to Alien, and while most assumed it would include the story of the famous "Space Jockey" (that large, dead creature in what is presumably the pilot's seat of the ship on which the facehugger eggs are discovered), Scott says that the prequel will take place before those events happen.

The director told Empire, "The prequel will be a while ago. It’s very difficult to put a year on Alien, but [for example] if Alien was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior." He also states that the prequel will be "a brand new box of tricks." Scott says that the general outline of the film is already in place and that the screenplay is currently being written.

These statements will be a slight disappointment to some, as a lot of us want to know what the space jockey was doing with his cargo of hundreds of eggs containing lethal creatures, but Scott's promise of newness should allay at least some of those sorrows. If anything, it's a good sign that he's not roping himself into a space jockey story just because he feels he has to. Such approaches to filmmaking rarely turn out well.