After the lackluster performance of last year’s Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus sequel that was setting the stage for a bridge directly into his 1979 Alien, Fox allegedly pulled the plug on the franchise. There’s never been any official word, but Scott had been planning to shoot the third film, Alien: Awakening, this past spring, which obviously never happened. Prior to that, reports had already circulated that pre-production had been shut down indefinitely, putting the entire franchise in jeopardy. Things got even hairier when Disney put in a major bid to acquire Fox, which would mean by the summer of 2019 “the Mouse” would own the Alien franchise. With all this information, what does the future hold for Alien?

According to Omega Underground, they’ve heard from multiple sources that a series set within the “Alien universe” was being considered behind the scenes. The reporter says they were able to “reaffirm the rumbling” with another source located in another country that was able to support some of the basic info, with a third source more recently also doubling down.

AvP Galaxy, a great source for all things Alien and Predator, interjected with some additional information. While they confirm “discussions of something being in the early days of development over at Fox,” they stress to “not to get too hung up over words like show or series.” They speculate that this isn’t going to be presented like a traditional series, adding that it’s unlikely to be seen on television, with an online release seemingly to be the more likely option at this time.

This is interestingly all timed to the first film’s 40th anniversary – and a recently launched contest in which Fox is asking fans to create their own “Alien Universe short film”. In early 2019, six videos will be selected as winners… could this be the lead up to something massive? You have to wonder if Fox makes some sort of announcement at this month’s San Diego Comic-Con?

What would you like to see as a continuation of the franchise? Stories from the colonists? More Ripley? More Daniels? Something completely different altogether?