Steve Coogan says Alan Partridge is on track for another big screen outing following the success of Alpha Papa.

The fictional radio and television presenter's debut film topped the UK box office and received excellent reviews in August. Coogan is currently promoting more cerebral fare, the drama Philomena alongside Judi Dench, but he said Partridge would return when the time was right.

"There's definitely some possibility of Alan having another outing, and what it is I don't know," the comic told Digital Spy. "He's not dead, we've not killed him. We deliberately didn't kill him - he's like a vampire, we put him in a coffin, he's kept in cold storage and we drag him out, attach the electrodes and re-animate him. We might do that in a couple of years."

Coogan said he had filmed Alpha Papa after Philomena, but the vagaries of the distribution business meant the more serious feature had emerged later. "I only did pursue the Alan Partridge film once I had these other projects on the go," he said. "I made Alan Partridge after Philomena chronologically, but I also worked with Michael Winterbottom on the The Look of Love, which I was very pleased with.

"I've just done a second series of The Trip in Italy with [Winterbottom], and I felt like as an actor, a performer I'm doing interesting and different things. So I didn't mind doing another Alan. It's a very classy problem to have."

Philomena, co-written by Coogan himself and directed by Stephen Frears, is the true story of an Irish woman's search for the son she was forced to give up for adoption in the 1950s by nuns who ran the convent where she gave birth. Coogan plays real-life BBC reporter Martin Sixsmith, who helps Philomena Lee in the search for her lost son.

• Watch a clip from Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

• Steve Coogan interview: knowing me? No way