DirectorRidley Scottrevealed in September that his highly-anticipated sequel to 2012’sPrometheuswill now be calledAlien: Paradise Lost, an announcement that thrilled and excited fans of the filmmaker’s belovedAlienfranchise. He later said that this sequel will actually connect to theXenomorphsfrom the originalAlienandSigourney Weaver’s iconic Ripley character, although we still don’t know how these connections will be made yet. While we still don’t know too much about the plot, the filmmaker revealed in a new interview withIndieWirethat the title has changed yet again, to Alien: Covenant. Here’s what the filmmaker had to say, about how he was working on this sequel when he was approached to makeThe Martian.
“I’ve got no plan. I go from pillar to post randomly. I have this childlike fascination and thrill of doing it. 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 calledThe 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 toDrew Goddard.'”
The director didn’t reveal why this new title change was made, but he revealed in an earlier interview that the title is inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The filmmaker said that classic poem will “inspire” his story inAlien: Paradise Lost, while also teasing that it will connect to the original 1979 classicAlien. Here’s whatRidley Scotthad to say in an interview that took place in September.
“Have you ever read Paradise Lost, by Milton? In a funny kind of way, it’s an interesting basis for the darkness of [Prometheus 2]. Where the good-looking guy, who is evil as s-t, gets all the girls and goes to the nightclubs. The other guy, who is not quite as good-looking, is boring as hell and stays home. So in a funny kind of way, we used that as the basis for it, it’ll beAlien: Paradise Lost. Which is very spooky, because it continues after the last one, where Elizabeth Shaw [Noomi Rapace] says, ‘I wanna go where they came from.’ And you’ve gotMichael Fassbenderin two parts, so she’ll slowly put him back together. They will go to the world of the Engineer. That’s where they’re going to go. They will find out who would design such an awful bio-mechanoid creature, like a massive piece of bacteria.”
Michael FassbenderandNoomi Rapaceare reprising their roles as the android David and Elizabeth Shaw, but no other cast members have been confirmed.Ridley Scottis directing from a script byJack Paglen,Michael GreenandJohn Logan. Production is scheduled to begin in January 2016, so hopefully we’ll learn more about the plot, and whether or not this is the final title, very soon. Do you thinkAlien: Paradise Lostor Alien: Covenant is a better title?
