One genre I’ve wanted to see Ridley Scott return to for so long is sci-fi. Once upon a time he gave us Alien and Blade Runner in such quick succession but surprisingly he’s never returned to dabble in the genre which made his name.

And after he called modern ’sci-fi dead’, I hoped he had found a reason and passion to dabble in the genre once again.

Well today’s news is that he’s attached himself to a new project and although it’s not strictly sci-fi, it might be the closest we get to it. From Variety…

Fox 2000 has attached Ridley Scott to direct “Stones,” a supernatural thriller scripted by Matt Cirulnick. Scott Free will produce.

Project is a big-scale supernatural thriller revolving around the mysterious destruction of ancient religious sites around the world. It turns out that Stonehenge is the tie that binds together artifacts that still have primeval powers.

Cirulnick is the writer whose script for a Greek mythology drama titled Elysium has been picked up by New Regency. The dude is apparently fascinated with the idea that things like Stonehenge and the Pyramids were built for a reason and this of course will be explored in Stones.

I like the idea of this, a big scale original script idea that sounds a little like Independence Day (the destruction of world sites) mixed with something like Indiana Jones, I guess. It’s quite hard to pin down exactly what it’s going to be like, which is indeed a very good thing… I’m sick of formulaic movies.

Before work can begin on Stones, not only will the strike have to be concluded but so will Scott’s projects Body of Lies (currently filming with Crowe/DiCaprio) and his revisionist Robin Hood story Nottingham (with Crowe, which Scott claims is ‘Gladiator‘ like in scale).

Oh and go out and see Scott’s American Gangster. Don’t let that movie pass you by, it’s absolutely spectacular.