Director Ridley Scott has been pretty busy lately, but he's finally found some room in his schedule to direct Prometheus 2.

In the latest edition of Total Film magazine (via Scified), it's reported that filming on Prometheus 2 will begin this January. No mention is made of a release date, but if they can stick to that schedule, sometime in 2017 seems likely.

Scott was quoted in the issue as saying, "I've got back into the science fiction thing. I kind of adore it." He's referring to his latest movie, The Martian, a science fiction adventure starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars.

The Prometheus sequel has had a tumultuous history over the past few years, but it finally seems to be coming together. The last update came back in November when Scott said the movie would feature a complete new alien and wouldn't just be recycling the Xenomorphs again. In fact, it won't have any Xenomorphs at all, focusing on the Engineers as well as a new species introduced in the third act.

Prometheus 2 will bring back Michael Fassbender as David and Noomi Rapace as Elizabeth Shaw. The rest of the cast isn't known as this time. This isn't the only upcoming project set in the Alien universe, as we're also getting a traditional Alien sequel starring Sigourney Weaver and directed by Neill Blomkamp, as we previously reported. So you can add Alien to the massive pile of upcoming shared universe movies.

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