Damon Lindelof was the brains behind 'Lost', a show with one of dumbest conclusions I've ever seen even. Of course the official line is he's working off Scott's ideas, which sounds reassuring, but since when did that stop a writer getting in his 10 cents worth. Indeed, part of the reason the studio hires these people is to really make sure they get what they want. It doesn't matter if you're Cameron, Lucas, Speilberg whatever, unless they are paying for the movie the director (usually) has the ideas, the writer translates that to the studio and they decided how it goes. The writer writes it again, popping in some his own ideas, and it goes through that process again and again until the studio is happy, it's simple as that, and if that doesn't worry people what might be in store nothing willl.
