‘The Wicker Man’ Sequel Director Justin Hardy Dies Just Weeks Before Premiere At Age 61

UK director and producer Justin Hardy died of a heart attack on July 31, just weeks before the premiere of his sequel to late father Robin Hardy’s 1973 cult folk horror The Wicker Man. He was 61. Hardy had recently completed Wrath of the Gods based on a long lost concept written by his father as the final feature in his The Wicker Man trilogy, following the original film and 2011 picture The Wicker Tree. It world premieres at Frightfest in London on August 28. “Justin was determined to complete his father’s vision forThe Wicker Man in his final years,” said publicist Ned Mansfield. Born in London on October 30, 1964, Hardy spent most of his directing and producing career making history and current affairs-based content. Watch on Deadline His near 50-credits included the Primetime Emmy-nominated hybrid work The Last Dragon; Bafta-nominated The Relief of Belsen, and RTS winners such as City of Vice and Trafalgar Battle Surgeon. In more recent years, Hardy focused on his father’s legacy after the new owner of his former family home got in contact with the news that six sacks of his father’s lost archive had been discovered untouched in the attic. Dominic and Justin Hardy with their late father’s newly discovered personal archive Robin Keane Hardy documented he and his half-brother Dominic Hardy’s research into the material in the 2024 documentary and book Children of the Wicker Man. The siblings went on to revive a lost original concept for a final film set in the world of The Wicker Man and shot entirely in Shetland discovered in their father’s papers. Hardy directed from a new original story co-written with Dominic Hardy, honored their father’s memory by returning to Shetland for the film starring Francis Magee (Game of Thrones) and Norwegian actress Christiane Schaldemose. Schaldemose plays a grieving widow Anna returns to Hel Island to bury her late husband after his suicide, and is promptly cast out by the eccentric locals for being a symbol of bad luck and evil. When children start going missing the island is forced to reckon with its dark history of familial abuse andthe terrifying beast-like forces of the sea. The half brothers dedicated the upcoming release to Justin’s mother Caroline Hardy after it came to light in the discovered archive that she had been a secret, uncredited executive producer on The Wicker Man. She died in 1984 at the age of 51.