The future of the Alien film franchise is unknown at this moment in time, with Disney’s recent acquirement of 21st Century Fox leading many to wonder if “the mouse” is even interested in bringing the decidedly terrifying Xenomorph back to the big screen. And if they do want more Alien, will they reboot entirely or continue/finish off Ridley Scott‘s prequel trilogy?

In a new chat with THR, reflecting on forty years of the franchise, Ridley Scott notes that discussions have taken place – with Scott himself lobbying for an “evolution.”

“You get to the point when you say, ‘Okay, it’s dead in the water.’ I think Alien vs. Predator was a daft idea. And I’m not sure it did very well or not, I don’t know. But it somehow brought down the beast,” Scott explained, first reflecting on the road to Prometheus. “And I said to them, ‘Listen, you can resurrect this, but we have to go back to scratch and go to a prequel, if you like.’ So we go to Prometheus, which was not bad actually. But you know, there’s no alien in it, except the baby at the end that showed, itself, the possibility. I mean, it had the silhouette of an alien, right? The alien [origin concept] is uniquely attached to Mother Nature. It simply comes off a wood beetle that will lay eggs inside some unsuspecting insect. And in so doing, the form of the egg will become the host for this new creature. That’s hideous. But that was what it was. And you can’t keep repeating that because the joke gets boring.”

Scott continued, “I think it’s just tough. The joke wears out. Once you’ve seen it twice, three times, it’s no longer frightening. So we’re looking where we’re going to evolve.”

“Leave that [past] behind, and see where it can evolve.”