Looks like Ridley Scott, the director of the soon-to-come (May 2010) Robin Hood, and the mastermind behind such hits as Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise and Kingdom of Heaven, is set to return the Alien franchise that he started in 1979 and which turned increasingly craptastic after James Cameron’s Aliens sequel in 1986. This go around will be a prequel and will be written by, from all I can see, a hardly known screenwriter named Jon Spaihts. While the project is unnamed and, obviously, has not even been written yet, I think it’s smart of 20th Century Fox to shoot for a franchise restart with the prequel angle. We’ll post more about this project as we learn more, but for fans of the Alien franchise, the return of Sir Ridley is nothing but good news.