Director Justin Hardy has passed away at age 61.
Hardy’s tragic passing comes just weeks before his latest film was set to open: the horror sequel “Wrath of the Gods,” scheduled to premiere on August 28.
As the BBC reported, “Wrath of the Gods” — which had previously debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — was the third film in the trilogy that began with 1973 cult classic “The Wicker Man,” directed by Hardy’s father, Robin Hardy.
A Family Legacy
Hardy and his brother, Dominic Hardy, had also directed the 2024 documentary “Children of the Wicker Man,” which explored the legacy of their father’s film and toll that making it took upon their family.
Hardy also directed a sequel to his father’s movie, 2011’s “The Wicker Tree.” The upcoming film serves as the completion of his trilogy, spanning more than five decades.
“The Wicker Man” was remade in 2006 with Nicolas Cage in the lead role.
More recently, Alexander Skarsgård stars in the soon-to-be-released “Wicker,” an offbeat comedic interpretation loosely based on the original film — with the actor playing a man who is literally made of wicker.
A Fatal Heart Attack
According to the BBC, the cause of Hardy’s death was a heart attack.
In a statement issued to the Guardian, the late director’s family wrote that they were “devastated to share that Justin Hardy passed away [on Friday]. He was so full of life right to the end, and incredibly energized to be working towards premiering his latest film this month. We are all so proud of him and heartbroken he won’t be with us at his premiere. He was a man of family, of boundless creativity and of devotion for everyone he held dear.”
Finishing What His Father Started
Per the Guardian, Hardy had based “Wrath of the Gods” upon an idea that he discovered while going through his late father’s archives in the attic of their family home, coming upon storyboards and script fragments.
The director’s brother, Dominic, paid tribute in a statement he issued.
“He aimed to use film on his own terms, to tell stories from original sources,” he told the Guardian, describing “Wrath of the Gods: as a “personal” film for his brother, “a distinctively new creative statement from so seasoned a film-maker … When I last saw him, on 17 July, he was looking forward to a future in which writing scripts could be his exclusive focus, bringing him, along with the form’s inbuilt challenges, generous measures of joy.”
A Distinguished Career
In addition to his “Wicker Man” projects, Hardy also directed various documentaries and historical films for such entities as the BBC, Channel 4 and CNN.
These include “Princes In The Tower,” “Trafalgar Battle Surgeon,” “The Relief Of Belsen” and “Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen.”
Speaking with the BBC, Dominic Hardy remembered his brother as possessing “an incredible appetite for life”.
He added: “We’ve lost him and we’ve lost that larger-than-life presence looking over us all. He really became a filmmaker his own right.”
