In an hour-long conversation at the AFI Film Festival, Ridley Scott nonchalantly revealed that his upcoming Prometheus sequel will now be titled Alien: Covenant, and not Alien: Paradise Lost as we first thought. The conversation was a discussion of Scott’s career to this point and started with an appreciation of his recent feature, The Martian, but inevitably, the subject of the Alien series was bound to follow very quickly.
Scott, having talked recently about his desire to reclaim sole ownership of the Alien property, referred to the upcoming project as Alien: Covenant while talking about how his involvement in The Martian came about. In the course of the conversation, Scott explained the following;
“I was going to be doing what will be called ‘Alien: Covenant,’ which starts shooting next February, and we were struggling then with the screenplay there and then there was a phone call, somebody saying, ‘Listen, we’ve got this thing which is completely written called ‘Martian,’ and I said, ‘Huh.’ And I sped read it in an hour and by mid-afternoon, I talked to Fox and said, ‘I need to talk to ‘Drew [Goddard]…’”
So it seems that Paradise Lost has been cast aside – if, in fact, it was ever as official as we all believed – in favour of Alien Covenant, although the movie is still slated for release in May 2017.
All of this information comes to us thanks to Indiewire’s Playlist Podcast, where the entire conversation with Scott has been captured for those unable to attend the festival. The fascinating exchange can be found here, and we certainly suggest that you check it out.