As we have seen from 40 years of cinema, it’s a bit difficult to take down a Xenomorph. You would be hard-pressed to find a fictional species harder to kill off, and yet, months after the release of the sixth instalment of the Alien franchise, veteran director Ridley Scott may be planning to do just that.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Scott claimed, "I think the beast has almost run out, personally… You’ve got to come in with something else. You’ve got to replace that." This idea has been explored before in Prometheus (2012), which divided critics and angered fans, but did prove, from a financial point of view at least, that a major Alien blockbuster could be made without the main creature.

The comments come months after the release of Scott’s Alien: Covenant, which was meant to be the second chapter of the Alien prequel trilogy (still with us?) While the cinematic and visual effects were praised, questions were asked about the plot (specifically the inclusion of the Xenomorph) and character motivations. Movie goers and critics unlike were unsure whether they were actually watching the sequel to Prometheus or a new addition to the original series.

This isn’t the first time Scott has claimed that the future of the franchise may not be with its iconic beast. During an earlier interview with Empire podcast, he briefly laid out where he sees the franchise going and highlighted the villainous AI David and the mysterious Engineers as potential antagonists.

All in all, it does seem odd for Scott to now be making such comments – you would have thought that if he felt so strongly about the Xenomorph, he would have left the creature out of Covenant in the first place. This may have made both prequels feel like an actual separate story arch within the larger Alien universe. However, with Covenant underperforming at the box office, it may be some time before we see 20th Century Fox give the go ahead for a new movie – and who’s to say Scott would be the one to direct it anyway?

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