EXCLUSIVE: Ridley Scott already had plenty of momentum heading into Golden Globes weekend with a Best Director nomination, and now he has even more. I hear that Scott is in early negotiations on a deal to come aboard and direct The Prisoner, the screen version of the 1968 Patrick McGoohan British TV series. This has been a plum project at Universal for some time with numerous A-list scribes including Christopher McQuarrie writing drafts. The most recent version was by The Departed scribe William Monahan. The film is being produced by Bluegrass Films Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark. Scott’s Scott Free team will likely become part of it as they get the script that makes the director happy. Numerous writers are circling to do that, and the elbowing by several top actors has also begun, now that word is getting around that Scott is coming aboard.

The Prisoner (known only as Number Six) is a former government agent who abruptly resigns from his job and finds himself imprisoned in an idyllic yet bizarre seaside village isolated from the world by the sea and mountains. He can’t escape because he knows too much, but that doesn’t stop others trying to capture him for his knowledge. What he wants is to keep them at bay and find his way to freedom.

Scott is prepping Alien: Covenant for Fox, which he’ll shoot shortly, and he hasn’t set a film after that. Covenant wraps up the storyline teased in 2012’s Prometheus, the film that picked up the storyline he started with his groundbreaking Alien. Scott is repped by WME. The Martian is also up for Best Picture in the Musical or Comedy Globes category, and Matt Damon is up for Best Actor.