The Underworld series, not unlike the Resident Evil franchise, is another action/sci-fi property that was born at a time when Hollywood was still desperately trying to emulate The Matrix. Somehow the general public still has not gotten tired of seeing female leads wearing tight leather outfits and fighting through bullet time action sequences, and so now 7 or 8 years later we have a fourth Underworld movie finally gearing up in the wake of the success of Resident Evil: Afterlife. Yay. The hook this time around is that star Kate Beckinsale is going to return after sitting out the previous prequel, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

We first heard rumblings about Underworld 4 back in August of last year, when it was being reported that the movie would be shot in 3-D. While they still haven’t officially announced that part, I think it’s probably a foregone conclusion. At the time, they were aiming for a January 2011 release date, which obviously won’t be happening now, but according to Heat Vision they are aiming to start production in March.

The script for the new film was written by John Hlavin (Day Break, The Shield), with rewrites by J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Ninja Assassin). The studio is search of a director and also an actress to play vampire Selene’s daughter (probably someone who can continue the franchise for another four films). Do you have any interest in a fourth Underworld film? And is it a bad sign for Kate Beckinsale’s career that she hasn’t really been able to move on from this role?