In a recent interview with Collider, Prometheus co-writer Damon Lindelof has confirmed that he will not be returning to pen the planned sequel to Ridley Scott‘s sci-fi epic. He also gave an explanation as to why he won’t be returning, stating that he has “other stuff” to attend to before he can give up two years of his life again.

Check out what he had to say below:

“The thing about Prometheus was it was a rewrite. Jon Spaihts wrote a script and I rewrote it. And still it was a year of my life that I spent on Prometheus, kind of all in. The idea of building a sequel to it—from the ground up this time—with Ridley is tremendously exciting. But at the same time, I was like, “Well that’s probably going to be two years of my life.” I can’t do what J.J. [Abrams] does. I don’t have the capability. I’m usually very single-minded creatively. I can only be working on one thing at a time. So I said to him, “I really don’t think I could start working on this movie until I do this other stuff. And I don’t know when the other stuff is going to be done.” And he was like, “Well, okay, it’s not like I asked you anyways.” He and I are on excellent terms and it was a dream come true to work with him. But much to the delight of all the fanboys, I don’t see myself being involved in Prometheus-er.”

Prometheus was a fairly divisive movie upon its release. A decent number of people loved it but even more were severely disappointed and unimpressed by Scott’s return to the Alien world. Personally I fell somewhere in between the two camps, I wasn’t blown away and was slightly underwhelmed by the finished product, but I think that was more down to the weight of expectation attached to the film after such a brilliant marketing campaign than anything else.

I’m still intrigued as to what Scott will do next with Prometheus though, so fingers crossed for an all around more enjoyable and less plot-hole riddled follow up. As for Lindelof not being involved, it isn’t a massive loss. Some of his other projects were far from exemplary… I’m looking at you Cowboys and Aliens, but the main thing to take from this interview is that a sequel is indeed going to go ahead, even if the LOST writer won’t be behind it.

What do you think of this news? Are you sad to see that Lindelof won’t be writing the sequel to Prometheus?