Ridley Scott will return to the "Alien" franchise to direct a prequel to his groundbreaking 1979 film, according to Variety.

Twentieth Century Fox is attaching Jon Spaihts to pen the script, with producing duties going to Scott Free Productions.

The film will precede the disastrous events surrounding the commercial towing ship Nostromo's response to a mysterious distress signal. Their investigations led to the discovery of an abandoned ship and a nest of deadly aliens on a nearby planet, later known as LV-426.

The events of that film launched three sequels, and inspired two largely dismissed spinoffs: "AVP: Alien vs. Predator" and "AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem."

Spaihts is currently scripting several sci-fi movies, including "Shadow 19" for Warner Bros. and the Keanu Reeves space journey epic "Passengers," which is in production for Morgan Creek. He earned a chance to pitch "Alien" based on his work on "Passengers," and later secured the job with his "Alien" prequel script, which Scott and the studio loved.

Fox has also hired Spaihts to rewrite "The Darkest Hour," with Timur Bekmambetov ("Night Watch," "Wanted") and producer Tom Jacobson attached. In addition, Spaihts is writing "Children of Mars" for Disney and Scott Rudin ("No Country for Old Men"), and he will follow by rewriting "St. George and the Dragon" for Sony and Red Wagon.