Love it or loathe it, Ridley Scott’s pseudo-prequel Prometheus pulled in over $400 million at the worldwide box office in 2012, and if a report by Total Film is to be believed, the esteemed filmmaker will return to expand a universe that spans three and a half decades early next year.
That’s right, after work is wrapped up on his adaptation of Andy Weir’s The Martian, Scott will remain in the sci-fi genre and kickoff production on Prometheus 2 in January of 2016. As quoted in the print issue of the magazine, the director has seemingly caught the sci-fi bug once again – no facehuggers this time, thankfully – and he can’t wait to get started on the anticipated sequel.
“I’ve gotten back back into the science fiction thing. I kind of adore it.”
Given that Scott shuffled the original start date in order to work on The Martian, while Michael Fassbender will be busy shooting X-Men: Apocalypse and headlining the Assassin’s Creed adaptation, a January start date sounds much more reasonable for Prometheus 2. What this means for Neill Blomkamp’s as-yet-untitled Alien 5 remains to be seen, but when you consider that their production timelines are set to run concurrently, could Fox really be prepping the Alien/Prometheus universe for a double helping?
The jury’s still out on that one. With Blomkamp making steady progress on his interpretation of Alien – one that isn’t designed to “tread on the toes” of Scott’s sequel – it’s likely that Fox will align his reboot-cum-sequel for a late 2016, before debuting Prometheus 2 in 2017. Moreover, the studio has also dumped resources behind Don Winslow’s drug thriller The Cartel, which Ridley Scott has signed on to produce. Whichever way the pieces fall into place, the director is going to be a busy bee over the next 12-18 months.
Ridley Scott’s latest film, The Martian, will enter near-earth orbit on October 2, 2015. Prometheus 2, meanwhile, won’t slither in front of the cameras until at least January 2016.