72-year-old director Ridley Scott generated excitement among genre fans worldwide when he announced that Swiss artist HR Giger (pictured left), creator of the alien monster in his classic 1979 sci-fi thriller would return to work with him on the two-part prequel to "Alien" shot in 3D.
According to London’s “The Guardian,” Giger’s wife Carmen Scheifele confirmed in a recent TV interview that Giger agreed to work on the highly anticipated prequels.
""Alien is a landmark, one of the really good science-fiction films," Scott said in an earlier interview. "Then "Blade Runner's" pretty good, too! I thought "Legend" (the 1985 fantasy starring Tom Cruise) was a landmark but I jumped the gun and simply started doing fantasy 25 years too soon. But it's a pretty good movie."
No word yet if Giger is set to create new alien monsters or update the classic monster he created for the 1979 film and continued to play a key role in all the “Alien” movies.
Reportedly, Giger may update the giant skeleton the Nostromo crew pass on the bleak planet seen at the beginning of “Alien.”
Scott said the sequels are set 30 years before the 1979 original movie and will show how the aliens came into existence.
"The film will be really tough, really nasty. It's the dark side of the moon. We're talking gods and engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?"
"Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof is finishing a re-write of the first prequel's script and Scott continues early pre-production prep on the films.
Noomi Rapace, star of the Swedish "Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo" trilogy of films, is in talks to star in the sequels. Rapace's competitors include Carey Mulligan, Abbie Cornish, Natalie Portman and "Tron: Legacy" star Olivia Wilde.
Expect the casting of the female lead to be big news when announced.