It looks like Ridley Scott has even bigger plans for the Prometheus franchise than anyone ever realized, extending beyond the promised sequel. In an interview with German film site FilmFutter, the Alien director said he has plans to delve into the origin of the Xenomorph across maybe even four films.

When asked how he planned to address the original film's many loose ends — what happened to the Engineers? when will Weyland Industries become the villainous Weyland-Yutani Corporation? what became of that weird proto-Xenomorph at the end of the movie? will Damon Lindeloff stop being so awful? — Scott said the answers will come, but slowly.

Answers to Prometheus' biggest questions are coming, but slowly

"It won’t be in the next one, it will be in the one after this one or maybe even a fourth film before we get back into the Alien franchise," he explained. "The whole point of it is to explain the Alien franchise and to explain the how and why of the creation of the Alien itself. I always thought of the Alien as kind of a piece of bacterial warfare. I always thought that that original ship, which I call the Croissant, was a battleship, holding these biomechanoid creatures that were all about destruction."

All this, while fascinating, also means that Alien 5 is even lower on Scott's priorities at the moment. Fans may view those first films (let's try to ignore anything that happened after Aliens) as ultimately superior, but it could now be a long time before we catch up with Ellen Ripley or her descendants.