Replace footage without opening After Effects?

Hey guys,

Is there a way to replace the footage or change the text layers in an After Effects project without opening After Effects?

Currently I'm using a automatically generated xml file to define the footage path and use a startup script to read the path from the xml file and replace the footage and text layers when After Effects started by command line.

But I don't want to open After Effects to change the footage.

So, is there a way to do it?

Thanks