leading from
a) Damon e-mails Jon Spaihts
Damon felt that since Jon Spaihts had done a very good job of executing his drafts, he felt it was his duty to end him an e-mail as soon as he was formally hired.
It would be to say "Hey, you’re gonna read about this — that I’ve
been hired to do this thing and I want you to know that whatever gets
said, I’m going to try to retain as much of what you did as possible
because I thought it was great."
b) News of Lindelof pitching a radical new direction
By the end of July in 2010 news suddenly came out that he came in and pitched a radical new take on this movie that used to be a prequel and was now transforming into its own original thing.
Perhaps it was a worry for a number of Alien fans to see news of the prequel project veering off in a completely different direction.
c) E-mail Jon again
Damon had to reach out to Jon again to explain that what was being reported wasn't quite what was happening
His explanation was that Ridley had a very specific idea of the story he wanted to tell, and sometimes one needed to look at different versions of it to know what you want and you don't want, which did seem to be what people found themselves doing with Ridley.
After that, Damon didn't feel that there was any bad blood between himself and Jon.
- Interviewer: Did you have any reluctance about working on someone else’s script? Not being the guy who was there from go?
Damon Lindelof: Yeah! Definitely! Especially since I felt like Jon had done a really good job of executing his drafts. I sent him an email as soon as I was formally hired saying, ‘Hey, you’re gonna read about this — that I’ve been hired to do this thing and I want you to know that whatever gets said, I’m going to try to retain as much of what you did as possible because I thought it was great. And then the story came out: Lindelof comes in and pitches this radical new take on this movie that used to be a prequel and is now transforming into its own original thing. I reached out to Jon again to say that’s not at all what happened. Ridley had a very specific idea of the story he wanted to tell. And sometimes you have to look at different versions of it to know what it is you want and what you don’t want. Whatever it is, I didn’t get the sense that there was any bad blood with Jon. They were just looking for someone to say to them, Hey, we don’t need the Alien stuff in here. It shouldn’t be about that. It can be a part of this movie, but it shouldn’t be what it’s about. (http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/05/11/damon-lindelof-prometheus-life-after-lost/2/) - Deadline: Damon Lindelof has taken his first big solo screenwriting job since concluding the ABC series Lost. I’m been told that he closed a deal to do rewrite work on 20th Century Fox’s Alien prequel, which the studio hopes Ridley Scott will direct as his next assignment.
In a development as vexing as a Lost plotline, studio
insiders said that while Lindelof indeed met with Scott and the studio
for that rewrite job, the exchange of ideas between them sparked a take
that could well turn out to be a free-standing science fiction film. The
studio will decide when Lindelof turns it in. Scott Free is producing
and Lindelof’s CAA reps closed his deal last night.
Lindeloff is currently writing with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci Paramount’s Star Trek sequel, on which Lindelof is a producer. He also teamed with Kurtzman and Orci to write the Jon Favreau-directed Cowboys and Aliens, which is shooting now with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.
That’s plenty of action, but I’m told that Lindelof jumped at this opportunity because Scott’s 1979 space thriller Alien was such a seminal influence on him. Resuscitating the Alien
franchise has been a big priority for Fox, which has a script by Jon
Spaihts, who wrote the Gabriele Muccino-directed Keanu Reeves-starrer Passengers for Morgan Creek, and whose drafts on the Alien film persuaded Scott to move from producing the film to directing it. (Deadline ,Wednesday July 28, 2010)
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