There’s a lot of people out there who love movies, but don’t know the credits of every person working on them.
It’s amazing that a lot of people love GoodFellas, but don’t know Martin Scrosese’s name as well as they would, say Lucas or Spielberg. Screenwriters? Unless your last name’s Tarantino, forget it.
So everybody in geekdom knows that Prometheus is coming June 8, and sci-fi/horror/genre fans are very excited.
But a lot of you may not know that it was penned by Damon Lindelof, who’s part of what I call Team Abrams. As you may recall, he co-created Lost with JJ Abrams, and also co-wrote the upcoming Star Trek 2.
When talking to Variety, just like everyone else involved in Prometheus, Lindelof has shied away from those pesky “prequel to Alien” speculations.
“My definition of a prequel is A to Y,” he said. “The problem with a prequel is there is an inevitability to them. You know how it’s going to end. There’s not really a lot of room for innovation.” Really, the goal has been to appeal to today’s audiences unfamiliar with the ’79 original, or even James Cameron’s Aliens, and make a movie that stands on its own.
“It has to be innocuous enough to make sense if you haven’t seen the movie,” Lindelof continued. And of course, the key to taking on the beloved universe of Alien, Star Trek, or whatever you want to tackle: “Don’t screw it up.”
“You can’t play it safe,” Lindelof continued. “The audience expects you to try something new.” This is hopefully what Prometheus has achiveved, and maybe some day they’ll reboot Lost the same way, although Lindelof said he’s done with it. “We told the story we wanted to tell,” he said, although he did hint that some new upstarts may indeed take it over somewhere down the road.
“I do feel like the world has not seen the end of Lost,” he added, noting he has no problem with a lack of future involvement. “It would be hypocritical for me to say I’m going to do Star Trek but I don’t want anyone to touch Lost.”
