Director Ridley Scott who helmed the first Alien movie, is planning to shoot two prequel films to the influential science fiction epic.  Scott plans to shoot the films in 3-D and hopes to begin production on the first film in early 2011.  He told Geoff Boucher of the L.A. Times’ Hero Complex blog, that the script for the first film “is written, I’m prepping it now.”

The Alien prequel will be set 30 years before the action in the first film.  The prequel will provide the backstory for the huge statue, dubbed “the Space Jockey,” that the crew of the Nostromo came across in the initial Alien movie.  Scott explained to Boucher: “we're going to go back [and ask]: 'Who the hell is the space jockey?' "

If the first prequel is successful, Scott, who also directed the influential science fiction film Blade Runner, believes that the story that he has come up with has the potential to spawn its own sequel: "What we're going to try to do is squeeze in two prequels. . . if you explain who he was and where did he come from. . . then you may want to find out where they came from, you might want to go to him and go to the place where his people come from."