Earlier this month when Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" was announced, what initially was to be a prequel to his 1979 sci-fi epic "Alien" had seemingly been changed to an original sci-fi project with only vague connections at best to that earlier film classic.
Scott said in his statement "While Alien was indeed the jumping off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien’s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative."
Thus those of us hoping to see his return to the "Alien" universe were left to console ourselves it seemed. Today however, Skymovies has scored a report that hints that the film isn't as disconnected as we might expect.
Their source claims the Space Jockey, the big corpse seen in "Alien" who was the pilot of the ship carrying the xenomorph eggs, has been built at Pinewood studios.
Their source also says “Despite that press release that seemed to indicate there were no aliens in the movie, the familiar HR Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones apparently", and that “The main spaceship in the film will be piloted by an enormous head which I assume will be CGI. Yep, sounds weird but I assume some of the technology will be sort of biomechanical.”
Finally the report also indicates part of the film will be shot in Morocco - "I’ve heard that some sort of archaeological dig where they discover alien DNA takes place there and that DNA gives them the coordinates for an alien world. I’ve also heard Morocco is being used for alien planet landscapes so I’m not sure if it’s an archaeological dig on another planet."
That all sounds much like the "Alien" prequel that was seemingly in development right up until the "Prometheus" announcement. This means there's two likely scenarios - either this report is bogus, or the "Prometheus" announcement is something of a smoke screen for the "Alien" prequel Scott has been promising for some time.
Until some paparazzi gets a shot of the Giger alien creatures or the space jockey being used at Pinewood, there's no way to confirm the rumor. We'll have to wait and see how this pans out.