His big day job on a little show called Lost might have come to an end, but writer/producer Damon Lindelof has only allowed himself a few scant weeks off before diving back into meetings on various high profile projects. And the biggest of the moment? Locking in a deal to do script polishing on at least the first of Ridley Scott’s planned Alien  prequels.

The movie’s screenplay was originated by Jon Spaihts, though with it being A) a big studio film and B) part of what Fox is no doubt hoping will be a new space-set franchise, it’s not a shock to see the screenplay going through several keyboards on its journey to the screen.

As for the plot, it’ll focus on events around 30 years before we meet Ellen Ripley and co, and will finally reveal more about the “space jockey” and the vicious xenomorphs. Oh, and how the Weyland company factors into it all.

And that’s not all: apparently Lindelof and Sir Ridders had such a productive meeting that the writer may actually end up writing another project for the director, an original sci-fi pic that they discussed.

Lindelof is of course part of JJ Abrams’ regular team of collaborators and is right now working on the script for Star Trek 2 with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (he was a producer on the first one). He’s also co-written the latest draft of Cowboys and Aliens with the pair, which actually managed to get the thing into production.