When 20th Century Fox announced a glut of release dates last week, buried among the many superhero sequels and team-ups was an Untitled Ridley Scott Project dated for March 2016.  Scott has a number of projects on his plate at the moment, but many wondered whether this untitled project might be the Blade Runner sequel that’s been heating up over the past year, or maybe even the promised Prometheus 2.  Well it appears that the mystery has been solved, as The Wrap reports that the untitled project is indeed a Prometheus sequel.  Moreover, a new writer has been brought onboard and Scott is now eyeing a fall production start-date for the pic.  More after the jump.

[Update: Variety confirms that a new writer has been hired for Prometheus 2, but notes that it's unclear whether Scott will direct and that the film is still undated.  The Wrap's reporter doesn't appear to be disputing Variety's claims, so it's possible the initial story jumped the gun a bit. Hopefully more will be clear soon, but our original story follows after the jump.]

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Per The Wrap, Michael Green has been enlisted to rewrite the screenplay for the untitled Prometheus sequel, which is now in first position as Scott’s next project.  After Prometheus scribe Damon Lindelof made it clear that he wouldn’t be returning to pen the follow-up, Jack Paglen (Transcendence) was brought onboard to write the script.  Green most recently worked with Scott on the new Blade Runner film, and now he’s been brought in to beef up the script in anticipation of a March 4, 2016 release date.

While it was unclear whether Scott would even direct the proposed Prometheus sequel, let alone whether the project would even happen, The Wrap’s report says the filmmaker will direct the follow-up with a scheduled production start-date this fall, after he completes post-production on his Moses epic ExodusPrometheus was certainly a success at the box office with over $400 million worldwide—especially for an R-rated thriller—but it was also very expensive, so there had been some uncertainty surrounding the follow-up.  Regardless, Fox appears to be quite bullish on the property.

Story details for the untitled Prometheus sequel are under wraps, but Green’s script is said to be more “Alien-y” than the 2012 film and in line with the same horror tone of the previous films.  Moreover, it is said to feature multiple David androids, who was played by Michael Fassbender in the first picture.  One surmises both Fassbender and Noomi Rapace will return.

Around the release of Prometheus, Scott was pretty open about where a proposed follow-up would go.  The ending of Prometheus saw Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw and a body-less David (Fassbender) as the sole survivors of their mission, setting out to discover where the Engineers originated.  Per Scott’s previous comments, the Prometheus follow-up would take place on the Engineers’ home planet, which he envisions as “extremely sinister and ominous.”  It’s entirely possible that Scott’s plans for the sequel have changed since then, but for a full, possibly spoilery rundown of Prometheus 2 courtesy of Scott himself, click here.

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Image via 20th Century Fox