EXCLUSIVE: 'Underworld 4' Latches on to Swedish Directing Team

The Swedish invasion of Hollywood continues.

Swedish directing team Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein have been hired to direct Underworld 4 for Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment.  

Kate Beckinsale is set to return as vampire warrior Selene.  

Production is set to start in March 2011 in Vancouver. John Hlavin wrote the script, which underwent revisions by comics writer and The Changeling scribe J. Michael Straczynski.

Lakeshore Entertainment's Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi and Len Wiseman are producing the new movie.

Marlind and Stein recently made their English-language debut with U.K. thriller Shelter, a supernatural thriller starring Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers that NALA Films produced. The movie has yet to be released Stateside.

Marlind and Stein are the latest Scandinavian imports to hit Hollywood. Movies such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Snabba Cash and Let the Right One In are or have been remade while their directors and stars are starting to make English-language movies. Examples include Noomi Rapace, the Dragon Tattoo star who’s been cast in Sherlock Holmes 2 and Daniel Espinosa, the director of Snabba Cash who is now prepping Safe House, a Universal thriller starring Denzel Washington.