While it was originally suggested that Neill Blomkamp’s planned Alien sequel, which would follow James Cameron’s 1986 Aliens, would be the final entry in the series, the Chappie (review) director now says there could be more.

In an interview with the UK Empire Magazine, via their podcast, Blomkamp explains his process, how he came to develop this new Alien concept, and how it could be more than one film.

“If you go back even three or four years, I’ve wanted to make a film in that genre, in that franchise. I’d come up with an idea, and when I met Sigourney (Weaver) on the set of Chappie, I presumed that she would never want to play Ripley again. Rightly or wrongly, I had that in my head. I also didn’t know where you could go with her, given Alien 3 and 4,” said Blomkamp.

“So when I started speaking to her, I just wanted to know more about the process of making the first two films. The first two are the ones that I care about. Then I started to realise there was a whole film – at least a film, if not more – that still contained Ripley, which I was really surprised by.”

The article goes on to boast his love for the franchise, which is slightly troubling. I’m not exactly a proponent of a director creating a “fan film,” which typically ends up as an annoying rehash with too many nods to the original films. I would love to see a sequel to Aliens, but I also want it to be Blomkamp’s own vision – something I believe he’s incapable of after seeing his films. Whatever the case, I really do want to see a new Alien sequel, as opposed to Prometheus, and hope he can pull off a miracle. How do you top Aliens? You don’t. Good luck, Mr. Blomkamp.