The miraculous rebirth of the Pacific Rim franchise, after a less-than-stellar box office for Guillermo Del Toro’s original monster mash left fans in a period of doubt, now revives the speculation about what might happen if the city-stomping Kaiju and their mechanized Jaeger nemeses would ever meet up with the denizens of Legendary Pictures’ new MonsterVerse. Namely the atomic lizard Godzilla and his furry frenemy of Kong: Skull Island fame. Well, now, we may finally have an answer to those oft-posed questions. Sort of.

The second in what is hoped to be an ongoing series, Pacific Rim: Uprising returns us to the world saved by the pilots of giant robot Gipsy Danger, now focusing on new lead John Boyega, who commands the newly redesigned Gipsy Avenger for more creature carnage.

Collider asked the film’s director, Steven S. DeKnight, about the potential of a Pacific Rim / Universal crossover, and he had this to say:

“I won’t say there’s an Easter Egg but there’s been a lot of discussion about that possibility [of crossing over]. Look I think it would be fantastic to have the Pacific Rim universe join Legendary’s Monster Universe, it seems like a natural step. And part of the big overall plan after the third movie we’ve talked about is that could happen, it’s always a possibility. It’s by far not a certainty; it’s merely theoretical at this point, but as a fan myself I would love to see that happen.”

It’s possible we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves with talk of a third film, as well as the possibility for multiple spin-offs down the road, but there’s no denying DeKnight’s enthusiasm for the Pacific Rim brand and its larger impact on giant monster cinema. He elaborates:

“Oh we definitely leave it open to another installment. The tricky thing with something like this is you want to not end on a cliffhanger. You don’t want an Empire Strikes Back cliffhanger unless you know you’re gonna do a third movie—you want to leave it open but also wrap it up. So that’s very much what we did on this movie. It has a definitive ending but very much open to the next chapter.”

So, the potential crossover, for now, is just that. Lots of potential, dependent upon the audience’s reception to the many projects that stand between now and then. Which includes, but is by no means limited to, a third Pacific Rim film, a second G-film (2019’s Godzilla: King of Monsters from Michael Dougherty), and a MonsterVerse crossover (2020’s Godzilla vs Kong from Adam Wingard).

That’s a lot of explosions.

That the characters from multiple monster franchises could interact in some distant-ish future isn’t really news. But it is nice to know that the hopes of kaiju fans have been heard by those making these epic blockbusters. And maybe one day, Godzilla will be staring down the barrel of a Jaeger cannon, and Kong will be ready to rip the jaws off an interdimensional Kaiju in the middle of a raging storm. And if I get Rinko Kikuchi back as Mako in a leading role, I won’t complain, just saying.