“There’s a good chance Rocky may ride again.”

Those are Sylvester Stallone’s words to Variety in a new profile about the actor and his dissatisfaction over his lack of ownership of the Rocky franchise. (Stallone has made millions writing, directing, producing, and starring in the series, but if he owned a piece of the property he could have made many millions more.) Eventually, the conversation in Variety turns to the possibility of new Rocky material. Stallone says he wants to make a Rocky TV series that would be a prequel to the film franchise, and he’s also working on an idea for a new movie that would be set in the present and continue the Italian Stallion’s story following the events of Creed II.

Here’s how Stallone described the premise:

Rocky meets a young, angry person who got stuck in this country when he comes to see his sister. He takes him into his life, and unbelievable adventures begin, and they wind up south of the border. It’s very, very timely.

This news actually doesn’t shock me. When I interviewed director Steven Caple Jr. for Creed II, I asked him about the fact that the film felt like a farewell to Rocky to me, and whether it was deliberately designed as Stallone’s Rocky swan song. Instead, Caple said “We didn’t intend on saying he was going to die. We really want to say ‘This is Creed’s franchise, and then this is Rocky’s franchise,’ so it can be a true spinoff and whenever we need to cross, we cross.”

When I followed up by asking whether the two franchises might conceivably continue separately, he responded “I don’t know. I don’t know,” followed by a knowing laugh. It sounds like this project may have been in the planning stages back then — and even if it wasn’t, the idea of Stallone making a new Rocky movie without Creed had at least been floated.

Can the Rocky franchise keep going without Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed? I guess we’ll see. As for when we’ll see it, Stallone told Variety that “they,” meaning the producers, “want to go tomorrow.”