In an interview with Empire, Ridley Scott talked at length about his sequel to Prometheus, which will also be a prequel to his 1979 movie, Alien.

Curiosity was piqued yesterday, September 24th, when Scott revealed the official title of his film, Alien: Paradise Lost, as people basically wondered, what does it all mean? At one point, simply Paradise was going to be the title, but it seems that quiet contemplation on Scott’s part has changed his course on a few things.

Aside from the title change, it seems that Scott has also debunked the idea that there won’t be any xenomorphs in Alien: Paradise Lost, stating: “I think I have to go again [with the H.R. Giger xenomorph]; we will see who made it, and why. That’s what’s interesting.” This, of course, is a result of his concept for the movie:

Years ago, I kept mulling over what Alien 2 could be. I was fiddling around with some ideas. I was always fascinated with why this thing [the xenomorph] would be made, by whom, and for what purpose? The planet it was on – and I was looking at the dark side of the moon – would be called Paradise. Paradise is a very ominous word…”

Scott also said that he’s “backing into the first Alien” and that he’s “even got connections with Ripley [in this], but [he’s] not telling [us] what.”

Alien: Paradise Lost is projected for a 2017 release, which will be followed by Neill Blomkamp’s sequel, Alien 5.

Sometimes, you can’t decide whether a movie is good or bad. And in 99% of those cases, that movie is Prometheus, which should have a Rotten Tomatoes score of “Eh?” Every other day, I change my opinion on it. Sometimes, I think that it’s full of incredibly tense sequences, and is beautiful to look at it. And other times, I wonder how they wrote the script to it. Was it passed down, by unreliable word of mouth, until it finally got down to Damon Lindelof, who had to piece together the garbled rumors of other screenwriters? Or did Ridley Scott pull “Alien prequel” ideas out of a hat at random, and only stopped when he got to a thousand slips of paper? I have no idea. Ask me tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be the best movie ever by then.

The best things about a Prometheus 2 is that it might improve upon Prometheus, or at least be a coherent movie. And it’s been reported that director Ridley Scott has been scouting locations in Australia for the film since May 21st. Prometheus 2 is set to start shooting this fall, so unless Ridley plans to make his Blade Runner sequel in a few weeks, we should probably get ready for an explosion of not-quite-Xenomorph news coming later this year.

Despite sucking from the fans’ perspective, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus still merits enough points in my book for a sequel since it left way too many questions unanswered about the Alien universe. I’m pretty sure fans want those questions answered too, and they also want to know what happens next with Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and David (Michael Fassbender) since they were the sole survivors in Prometheus, including the Deacon (pictured above). Now that FOX has recently added an “untitled Ridley Scott” project to its list of upcoming films for 2016, which is most likely the sequel to Prometheus, I’m guessing that some of those lingering questions introduced in the prequel will finally be answered in about two years.

According to The Wrap, it also appears that a new writer has been hired to pen the sequel. Michael Green (Green Lantern, Blade Runner sequel) is the new scribe and his duty is to rewrite an early draft that Jack Paglen (Transcendence) wrote. From what reports tell us, the sequel will be closer in tone and scare factor as Alien. Word on the street is that filming could start this fall.

Are you getting excited or what? Prometheus 2 is expected to drop on March 4, 2016.

Noomi Repace – Credit: Twentieth Century Fox

“They’re working on the script. I met Ridley in London a couple of weeks ago. I would love to work with him again and I know that he would like to do another one. It’s just like we need to find the right story. I hope we will.”

“It’s interesting because people, most people I’ve talked to, who’ve seen the movie, see things that are quite different. Some people who see the movie many times discover new things. There are all these religious aspects and there are very interesting conversations. And for me, if we do a second one, there are a lot of things to explore in there and to continue. I would love to do it.”

Stay tuned to Yell! Magazine as this story unfolds.

Rock Hard \m/

WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS IN THIS PROMETHEUS OVERVIEW

By now, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is old news. Film critics mostly adored it, fans have been divided by it, and Scott himself is riding the high, doling out DVD/Blu-ray news and continuing to release viral videos with what I imagine to be a smug, self-serving look plastered across his face (see below — that’s a good example of how the British do it).

Enjoy it while it lasts, Sir Ridley, because I’m here to tell you that history will not be kind to your film in my little Prometheus overview. Sure, it’s a visually stunning piece of work that delivers scene after scene of fastidiously designed science-fiction world building. Yes, it sports a strong ensemble cast of some of the finest actors of this generation — Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, and Guy Pearce, specifically. Of course, it bats around some heavy themes regarding mankind’s origin and possible apocalypse. And, to top it all off, it fleshes out the world Scott himself created in 1979 with his seminal Alien, even giving us a glimpse into the DNA origins of the Xenomorph itself. However, it doesn’t take a 5-year-old to understand that, despite strong ingredients, Prometheus comes together about as well as the worst entries in the Alien franchise.

After years of waiting, avoiding news spoilers, and writing articles about the Alien franchise for Yell! Magazine building up to Prometheus, I left the theater the weekend of June the 8th feeling cheated out of a quality story that an Alien prequel rightfully deserved. What I watched instead was some sort of half-assed riff on H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness fused onto 2001: A Space Odyssey, with elements of the Alien mythos thrown in for good measure.

What disturbs me most about the film isn’t the intense sequences of body or cosmic horror — its how half-assed the film’s screenplay turned out.

I’m no expert on the works of screenwriter Damon Lindelof (above) or Jon Spaihts (below), but their resumes don’t exactly dazzle me. Yes, Lindelof has the benefit of having LOST under his belt, a show that captured America’s imaginations initially before petering out at its end for everyone but ardent fans. His contributions to Cowboys and Aliens sported some strong characters and a wonderful mix of story elements that recalled Hawks, Ford, and Leone in their prime, but the film lacked original or innovative science-fiction elements.

Spaihts, on the other hand, seems to be billed by movie news sites as big-budget sci-fi’s up-and-coming golden scribe. This is in spite of the fact that his only other produced credit besides Prometheus is The Darkest Hour, a matinee level take on War of the Worlds whose audience seems to exclusively be 13-year-old boys. Then again, I saw The Darkest Hour in theaters and have to say, I don’t even think they were particularly impressed with that film’s screenplay (or acting or direction or special effects, for that matter).

Still, setting their prior work aside, one cannot argue that there had to be enough talent and imagination between Lindelof and Spaihts to craft Prometheus into a watermark horror film with the help of Sir Ridley’s sleek, stylish hand. So what the hell happened?

A screenwriting clusterfuck, that’s what. I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to decide where to begin, but let’s start with Prometheus‘ characters. They are predominately one-note, each saddled with a few quirks that are supposed to coalesce and form personalities. Let’s delineate this further in this Prometheus overview, shall we?

Idris Elba’s character flies the ship and plays the accordion (and apparently loves Stephen Stills, a reference that works about as well here as “In The Year 2525” did in Alien 3).

Charlize Theron’s frigid ice queen Vickers has secrets and lurks around a lot. She may also be more human than human. Maybe. I’m talking Ian Holm stuff here, people.

Sean Harris’ Fifield has a mo-hawk, is anti-social, and loves geology.

Logan Marshall-Green’s scientist Charlie Halloway is gung-ho and attached to —

Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw, another scientist whose quirk is — gasp — her strong Christian beliefs, despite hypothesizing the world was created by pale extraterrestrial giants.

What’s the rest of this Prometheus overview have in store?

I’ll say right off the bat that this is right up my street. I was a fan of the Alien franchise going in, so I was already sold on Prometheus (2012). For the uninitiated: At the start of Alien, the crew of the Nostromo act like a group of naïve teenagers at the beginning of a horror film. The crew blindly follows orders to land on a strange planet and go onto an alien spaceship, which leads to one of the best examples of sci-fi horror in film.

This was the party cruise.

Over numerous films, the Alien franchise explores a variety of ways people can be killed by acid-bleeding, face-hugging, double-jawed horrors lurking in the darkness. However, they never really answered the niggling question that a lot of geeks wanted answered: “Who was that big, dead alien dude (aka, Space Jockey) with the hole in his chest they found at the start of Alien?”

Given the remaining Alien and AvP films started to lose their way in recent incarnations, Prometheus (2012) brings some of the quality of the first film back. Not to disrespect Aliens, but having one creature as the unstoppable, near mystical bad-ass that can’t be killed is far scarier than hundreds of aliens serving as cannon fodder, which was the main selling point of James Cameron’s Aliens. It’s the former, unstoppable bad-ass kind of scares that you can expect with Prometheus – and then some.

“Noooo. I’m meeeeltinnnng.”

This is the first of three films set to explain the presence of the Space Jockey discovered at the start of Alien. This being Ridley Scott’s first sci-fi film since 1982, you know it’s going to be pretty stunning (Scott’s previous sci-fi films consisting of Alien and Blade Runner). Despite a sterling cast that includes Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Noomi Rapace, and Logan Marshall-Green all turning in first-class performances, it’s Michael Fassbender who owns every scene he’s in as the android David. It’s to the films detriment the rest of the cast are slightly underused whenever Fassbender is on screen – he screams of “best actor nomination.”

Damn it! Wrong pic. How’d that get in there?

Try this one:

Less like naive teenagers, more like mad scientists, the crew of The Prometheus know what they’re doing and from the outset; They’re hightailing it across the galaxy to a planet where there’s a chance that they might get to meet the alien engineers of humanity. Anybody else think this is a bad idea from the offset?

I don’t want to lay down too many spoilers in this review, so I’ll just say if you’ve even a passing interest in Prometheus (2012), just go. The tension builds at the right pace and as the film progresses there are some amazingly put-together set pieces, each one with enough ideas for a decent writer to spin a whole film out of. There’s more than one good plot twist throughout to keep things interesting. Mix that with well-developed characters, excellent special effects, plus amazing set designs and you’ve got a winning combination.

Is there room for one more in there?

The Verdict: [rating:4.5]

The film is pretty epic in scope and being an Alien prequel, the payoff third act has some pretty outstanding gross out moments. It’s less narrative driven like Aliens; “Yarr, here be aliens, shoot them with the big guns or they’ll kill ye” and more educated and thought-provoking, asking things like, “Who made the alien creatures? Who put humans on Earth and why?”; “Who thought Evil Argento was a good idea?” Despite answering the question about Space Jockey’s early on, it asks a whole load more questions that I expect won’t be directly answered, but certainly explored in the next film spinning this franchise off in a whole new, far more exciting direction.

Yell! Rating (x/5 Skulls):

[rating:4.5]

Year Released:

8 June 2012

Director:

Ridley Scott

Cast/Crew

Noomi Rapace, Logan Marshall-Green, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, Sean Harris, and Michael Fassbender

Genre

Thriller, Horror, Sci-Fi

Official URL:

Prometheus Official Site

“Why? Why are the innocent punished? Why the sacrifice? Why the pain? There aren’t any promises. Nothing certain. Only that some get called, some get saved. She won’t ever know the hardship and grief for those of us left behind. We commit these bodies to the void with a glad heart. For within each seed, there is a promise of a flower, and within each death, no matter how small, there’s always a new life. A new beginning. Amen.” – Dillon (Charles S. Dutton)

Alright, this is rumor control.

Here are the facts

Of the Alien anthology/tetralogy/sextet (if you want to count the crossover films), Alien 3 is the film with the worst rap. Yes, Alien Resurrection is a mess of eccentric direction and an uneven script. Alien Vs. Predator is a neutered, slipshod novelty. Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem has apologist thanks to copious creature brawling and gore set pieces, but sports technically terrible direction and a non-existent script.

Yet Alien 3 is looked at as the biggest disappointment of the franchise by fans and filmmakers alike thanks to two important factors. First, it is the follow-up to what is arguably the most successful sequel of all time. Second, it carries with it a troubled, highly publicized production history that has bred a “what could have been” and “what should have been” attitude toward the film.

Screenwriters David Twohy (Pitch Black), Eric Red (Near Dark), John Fasano (Black Roses), Vincent Ward (What Dreams May Come), and William Gibson (Johnny Mnemonic and the cyberpunk novel Neuromancer) all took a crack at various drafts of the screenplay. Premises included Alien air-borne viruses that mutated humans into super-Xenomorphs, an orbiting farm community besieged by a Xenomorph outbreak, and a desolate space prison host to human-Alien experimentation. The latter idea was taken and tweaked by Vincent Ward to be set on an a wood sheathed prison planet occupied by expatriate, anti-technology monks.

When Ward left, Larry Ferguson, David Giler, and Walter Hill refocused the project, adapting the story to their own distinctive style while dropping the medieval overtones in favor of apocalyptic Christian ones. Sigourney Weaver agreed to shave her head for the part and signed on to reprise her signature role as Ripley for a record setting paycheck ($5 million of the escalating $45 million budget). In a move that would, um, alienate fans for decades to come, fan-favorite character played by Michael Biehn and Carrie Henn were killed off-screen and written out of the franchise’s future permanently. While Hill was in line to direct, he rescinded the throne when Fox pushed up-and-coming commercial/music video director David Fincher into the position less than two weeks before shooting was set to begin.

And that’s when things got really interesting. Reports of tension on the set between Fincher, Gill, Hill, and Fox executives ran rampant. Re-shoots ensued, changing both the Xenomorph’s origins and the ending. Fincher himself disowned the project thanks to interference – walking out on Alien 3 before editing even began. The studio, Hill, and Giler would have their way with the film, and on May 22, 1992, filmgoers flooded cinemas only to leave outraged.

Keep in mind, an early teaser trailer for the film (above) featured the tagline, “In 1979, we discovered in space, no one can hear you scream. In 1992, we will discover, on Earth, everyone can hear you scream.” This accompanied an iconic shot of the facehugger egg erupting over Earth.

So, from the very beginning of the film’s marketing campaign, before shooting on Alien 3 had even begun, audiences were set up to be disappointed upon discovering the film is not set on Earth and the implication of a full-scale Xenomorph invasion was nothing more than an early idea for the film. (Weirdly enough, no screenplays featured an Earth invasion in the purest sense, though David Twohy’s draft did feature a penal colony/Xenomorph station orbiting as a threat over our planet.)

What audiences got was no Earth invasion, no Hicks, no Newt, no gunplay, no big explosions, no march heavy score, and no big action scenes. Instead, they were treated to a rough re-working of the original Alien as a Christ-like parable.

Read about the passage from one Alien film to the next after the jump…

Credit: Abraham Productions

From a genre film fan’s point of view, the 2012 blockbusters this summer will be memorable.

Without any further delay, let’s get on with the 2012 blockbuster movies, summer edition. In no particular order, so lay off with the “What? How is this not Number 1?” comments.

No.13 The Avengers

What can I say about this film that’s not already been said? Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and the two Iron Man films have all been building up to this. It’s the film I’ve been waiting over 10 years to see (rumors of a Captain America film being released a year before The Avengers movie started circulating way back in 2000) and if previous performance from the other films are anything to go by, this will be the one to watch this summer.

To quote Director Joss Whedon himself: “This is a war film.” We know Loki will be one of the bad guys, but the identity of other opponents Earths Mightiest Heroes face in the movie has been one of Hollywood’s best kept secrets. At the end of The Incredible Hulk the origin of The Leader was teased, plus The Abomination was left alive; so might they make an appearance? I can’t wait to check this one out.

No.12 Men In Black 3

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the multiplex, Columbia spring another MIB film on us. I liked MIB 1, it was funny, original, and incredibly entertaining stuff. Men in Black 2, on the other hand was a terrible, hastily assembled cash grab even Johnny Knoxville couldn’t save.

Now that the Transformers movies have illustrated that shameless cash-ins are worth their weight in gold, we can expect a flurry of films of this nature. Men in Black 3 could go either way with one caveat, Tommy Lee Jones is not actually in most of the movie.

The plot revolves around an alien threat erasing Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) from history, leaving Agent J (Will Smith) with the mission to travel back in time to 1969 to team up with young Agent K (played by Josh Brolin but voiced by Tommy Lee Jones) to investigate. Is Tommy Lee Jones not being in the most of the movie part of the original script? Did Tommy Lee opt out ahead of it being written? Has Brolin really got a bad deal? We’ll find out at the end of May.

No.11 Snow White and The Huntsman

What? You think this is a chick film? From the trailer it looks like Thor with an Axe kicking all kinds of ass.

2012 has two film takes on the Snow White tale. The first one, Mirror Mirror, has been utterly destroyed by critics and looks terrible. On the other hand, Snow White and The Huntsman looks really cool. Like the best fantasy parts from Pan’s Labyrinth tied in with a fantasy/dark fairytale genre film and Chris Hemsworth establishing his role as the new badass in Hollywood. Directed by newcomer Rupert Sanders, this really looks like one to watch out for.

No.10 Prometheus

“It’s about gods and engineers,” says director Ridley Scott, returning to add to the Alien canon. It’s been 33 years since Ridley Scott’s Alien hit the screens and introduced us to this space beast that’s haunted nightmares and cinemas on and off over the last three decades.

This film sets up to explain what the mysterious alien astronaut’s body (now known as a “space jockey”) discovered in Alien was doing on that planet. It’s also possible that the film could explore how the alien species came into being. Whether there’ll actually be any Xenomorph’s in the film remains to be seen, but this one has a great pedigree. Some viral promotional videos have already hit the web and this seems to be another film with more than a few really cool surprises in store.

No.9 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Say what you like about the title, it’s a dumb title, but do not discount this one. It’s directed by fantasy-action director Timur Bekmambetov, who in the past has brought us Night Watch, Day Watch, and Wanted. Wanted wasn’t the best film, the story was weak, the twist predictable, and even Angelina Jolie’s naked body on screen couldn’t stop me wanting the movie to end. The action in it, however, was totally over-the-top, incredibly well-directed, and visually stunning.

Take that style and add the thoroughly silly plot of Abraham Lincoln wanting to rid the world of vampires who are in league with slave owners, and you have what could prove to be the real dark horse of the summer box office. I’m not messing around, this film could be a real winner. Bekmambetov is a proven action director and with production from Tim Burton, it looks like he’s been allowed to go all out making what could be a seriously cool historical action fantasy.

No.8 G.I. Joe: Retaliation

I don’t care what anybody else thought, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was awesome. It had excellent action, excellent characters, and a thoroughly entertaining story. I went in with low expectations and was more than pleasantly surprised by what I saw. It was exactly what it promised it’d be, a good sci-fi action film based on the old cartoon that was based on the toys that were based on a comic. It had so many different sources that it had to make changes to adapt, but unlike other film series based on toy series, i.e., Transformers, it actually worked really well.

This time around we’re back where we left off from the last film; Zartan in the White House disguised as the president leading the United States to declare war on “The Joe’s.” Channing Tatum reprises his role as Duke, but The Rock takes over the lead in this one as Roadblock. Bruce Willis makes an appearance as the original G.I. Joseph Colton. With yet more over-the-top action sequences, including color-coded ninjas battling while suspended on the side of a cliff. This one will be one to watch.

Find out what other surprises are on our 2012 Blockbuster Movie Preview – Summer Edition after the jump…

For the Record, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus movie follows a team of explorers who discover a clue to the origins of mankind on earth, and must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

Prometheus will hit theaters on June 8, 2012.

On June 8, 2012, Ridley Scott is delving into the black abyss, and he’s taking audiences with him. Returning to the franchise that popularized cosmic horror in film, Scott’s Alien spinoff, Prometheus, is being buzzed about as one of the cinematic events of the year.

Weeks ago, things reached a fever pitch as fans were treated to a viral video that linked the two properties closely together through one character – Peter Weyland of Weyland-Yutani, the devious “Company” from Alien. In the video, the character (played by Guy Pearce) gives an impassioned speech regarding the progress of technology throughout human history, from the discovery of fire (as stolen by the titan Prometheus) up to the development of androids that will move through society undistinguished from humans. This all culminates in his inevitable conclusion that “We are the Gods now.”

(Prometheus Viral Video)

Judging from this monologue, Prometheus seems primed to retell the titular myth (see the video for Weyland’s grisly version) using the extraterrestrial “gods” of the Alien universe in place of the Titans.

Though Ridley Scott and screenwriters Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts will likely receive accolades from critics for applying Greek myth to the Alien universe, the truth is that the idea was always there, if in a slightly different form, in Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett’s original draft of Alien. Alien is, after all, about a space crew duped into absconding with a biological weapon from the remains of a higher species. Yet, where Prometheus is paying homage to Greek myth, Alien was paying homage to a much more modern mythos – that of 20th century horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Our Earth is not our own…