With Amazon officially renewing The Expanse for a fifth season ahead of its fourth season's debut on the streaming service, the future is certainly looking bright for the sci-fi show. Of course, there are only a finite number of seasons that can be created by following the books written by James S.A. Corey, the joint pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

With nine books slated for The Expanse as a whole, will there simply be nine seasons of the show on Amazon? According to Alcon Entertainment Co-President Andrew Kosove, the producers are more than willing to explore the possibilities of spin-offs and standalone movies within the universe that fans have come to know and love.

Related: The Expanse Season 4 Trailer Takes Humanity to the Stars

We had a chance to speak with the veteran film producer regarding the future of The Expanse while visiting the set of seasons 5 and 5 in Toronto several times this year, and Kosove didn't shy away from painting a picture where his production company explores ample ventures based within the universe of The Expanse:

Andrew Kosove: So, there'll be nine books. The simple answer is that we'd love to have nine seasons for the nine books, right? The truth of the matter is that the world that Ty and Daniel have created is so rich, there are lots of different ways that Alcon will explore this. One is to continue on Amazon [for] as many seasons as they'd love to have us. I think if this show's fanbase continues to accelerate the way we've seen over the last year, for the next couple of years, I think that the idea of doing something in the feature universe is something that we'll consider very seriously, and maybe we'll can get movies in the world of The Expanse.

Kosove has seen The Expanse go through a lot in the last year-and-a-half: the show was cancelled by Syfy back in May 2018, but a strong showing of fan support eventually led to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos saving the series and continuing it as an Amazon Original. With the first three seasons of The Expanse now available on Amazon Prime Video (and a fourth debuting December 12th), Kosove has seen a rapid growth in terms of the show's outreach to fans. As one might expect, he's more than happy to continue delivering Expanse-related projects to the masses so long as the demand is there:

Kosove: I also think that there are spinoffs in The Expanse. The universe is so vast, where you can explore different character arcs and so-on and so-forth.  So, I guess the more complex answer is that there are a lot of ways it could go, and if the fans continue to grow we're going to explore this IP in a lot of different ways. If Amazon continues to be enthusiastic about the show and we can go another three, four years, we'd love to do that.

For its part, The Expanse has already delved through a lot of mediums: the book series itself actually got its start as a videogame idea. Ty Franck had nearly sold The Expanse as an MMO to a Chinese company, but the expenses involved in the project eventually had the game's financial backers quietly step away. This left Franck with the full rights to what would become The Expanse, with Franck then testing it out as a roleplaying game. One of the first people to play it, Daniel Abraham, suggested that the setting and characters developed for the RPG would best serve as a book series. Thus, The Expanse as we know it came to be, and the success of the novels eventually led into the show itself.

the expanse amazon show

Of course, Kosove's willingness to explore spinoffs and features within the universe of The Expanse isn't any concrete proof that it's going to happen: first and foremost, the main show needs to be a success. If there's interesting beyond that as the show nears it ends, that's when fans will likely see Alcon Entertainment deeply explore the possibility of additional content.

Still, the fact that the the man behind the company which owns, finances, and produces the show is willing to speak so candidly about such opportunities is certainly food for thought. In the meantime,

More: The Expanse Complete Timeline Explained

The Expanse season 4 releases on Amazon Prime Video this December 12, 2019.