Citing an interview with German site FilmFutter.com, Variety reports that thrice-Oscar nominated director Ridley Scott (Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, Thelma & Louise) is planning not just one but possibly up to three more sequels to 2012’s Prometheus.

The original feature and quasi-prequel to the Alien universe was set in the year 2093 and revolved around a team of scientists led by Noomi Rapace (The Drop, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) who journey to a distant planet in the hopes of discovering mankind’s origins. Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs, Macbeth) played David, an android on the Prometheus who can understand human emotions but not feel them.

The sequel looks to start filming in February, with Fassbender and Rapace back on board. Conceived as a quasi-prequel to his 1979 sci-fi classic, Alien, Scott said the Prometheus stories will lead up to explaining how the xenomorph (the alien in Alien) came to be and the purpose for which it was created. Scott said it will require more than one film to explain the origin of the Alien universe. “It won’t be in the next one,” Scott told the site. “It will be in the one after this one or maybe even a fourth film before we get back into the Alien franchise.”

Scott elaborated, “I always thought of the alien as kind of a piece of bacterial warfare.” He continued, “I always thought that that original ship, which I call the Croissant, was a battleship, holding these biomechanoid creatures that were all about destruction.”

In a sort of parallel universe, Fox is developing an Alien sequel with Neill Blomkamp which is to focus on Ellen Ripley’s story (played by Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise). The story will be set long after the Prometheus storyline ends. In the meantime, Scott’s other science fiction film The Martian will open on October 2nd.

Prometheus 2 is scheduled for a 2017 release.