They’re trying really, really hard to make people want to see this Prometheus sequel, I guess. First, they aren’t using the word “Prometheus” anywhere, instead only referring to it as another Alien movie, something which would surely draw more people. It was to be known, for awhile, by the name Alien: Paradise Lost, perhaps referring to the discovery in Prometheus that our engineers/creators were real d-bags. Now, in a similarly religious change, director Ridley Scott revealed that the now-third title for the project is Alien: Covenant.

Scott dropped the name casually, like it weren’t no thang, last week during a special AFI Fest discussion and Q&A about his hit film, The Martian. Those comments are below:

‘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 ‘[The] 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 would appear that, instead of referencing the John Milton epic poem about many Old Testament things like the fall of Lucifer and man’s fall in the Garden of Eden, it’s now going to reference the Jewish belief in the pact created between God and the Chosen People. Surely you remember Raiders of the Lost Ark? Same “covenant.” They’re really hitting this idea of the engineers being our creator and a broken promise betwixt us hard on the noggin. Even Prometheus itself is a reference to the being who stole fire from the gods. Really, I just want a good movie, regardless of how highfalutin the themes are.

Scott also mentioned in that snippet that the film will start shooting this upcoming February, which means we can likely expect Alien: Covenant or whatever it ultimately ends up being called in 2017, I’d expect. Who can say for sure, though? Scott might well decide to go do a better different movie and postpone the travails of a woman and a robot head for another period of time.

What are your thoughts on all these name changes? Are you excited for a follow-up to Prometheus? Let me know in the comments below!

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HT: Cinemablend
Image: 20th Century Fox

Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow him on Twitter!