UPDATED, Nov. 16:

20th Century Fox officially announced today that the film has been renamed Alien: Covenant

Loading

Loading

Here is the official plot synopsis and title treatment for the film, which opens October 6, 2017:"Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS -- and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world -- whose sole inhabitant is the "synthetic" David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition."The original report follows.Ridley Scott's upcoming sequel to Prometheus has reportedly been retitled Alien: Covenant.The film, which last we heard was officially titled Alien: Paradise Lost , was recently discussed by Scott at the AFI Film Festival (via Indiewire ). Instead of calling the movie Alien: Paradise Lost in his discussion, however, the director casually referred to the film by a new name, Alien: Covenant."I’ve got no plan. I go from pillar to post randomly," Scott said of his project schedule, going on to explain how the opportunity to work on The Martian sidetracked him from moving forward on Alien: Covenant."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 '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]...'" he added.A proper fifth installment in the Alien franchise was set to be helmed by District 9 director Neill Blomkamp, but has since been put on hold , presumably in favor of Scott's sequel to Prometheus What do you think of the new title? Do you prefer Alien: Covenant over the Paradise Lost subtitle? Let us know in the comments.Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter