The Martian director Ridley Scott is currently in the midst of the obligatory press circuit for his anticipated new sci-fi film, but he hasn’t shied away from talking about some of his other high-profile projects in the works. After recently discussing his plans for three or four more Prometheus movies before that series connects with the timeline of his franchise-spawning 1979 classic Alien, Scott has now revealed the title for the Prometheus sequel expected to hit theaters in 2017.
According to Scott, the film will be titled Alien: Paradise Lost.
During an interview with HeyUGuys (around the 3:25 mark in the video), Scott announced the film’s title and explained that it’s a reference to John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, which chronicles the fall of man from a Biblical perspective. The first edition of the poem was published in 1667 and encompassed ten books and over ten thousand lines of poetic verse covering the creation of man through humanity’s final days.
“It sounds intellectual but there’s a similarity to it,” said Scott. “That’s where it stops.”
In Prometheus, the nature of paradise was briefly discussed in an exchange between a young Elizabeth Shaw (Lucy Hutchinson) and her father (Patrick Wilson). When she asks where people go when they die, Shaw’s father tells her, “Everyone has their own word; heaven, paradise. Whatever it’s called, it’s someplace beautiful.”
“How do you know it’s beautiful?” asks Shaw.
“‘Cause that’s what I choose to believe. What do you believe, darling?” he responds.
Details regarding the sequel to Prometheus have been difficult to come by, but the film is expected to take the adult Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and the android David (Michael Fassbender) to the home planet of the Engineers — the race of giant aliens that created the deadly, acid-blooded xenomorphs at the heart of the franchise.
Alien: Paradise Lost is reportedly beginning principle photography early next year, with a release date of May 30, 2017.
