Director Justin Hardy, who had just completed a follow-up to his father Robin’s cult classic film The Wicker Man, has died aged 61. The filmmaker’s family said Hardy died on Friday night after suffering a heart attack. In a statement to the Press Association, they said: "Our family is devastated to share that Justin Hardy passed away last night. He was so full of life right to the end, and incredibly energised 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."

Robin Hardy was best known for the 1973 folk horror classic The Wicker Man, starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland, which sees a police office sent to the fictional Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate a missing girl. Speaking to PA, Dominic Hardy said his brother Justin would be remembered as someone “with an incredible appetite for life”.

Throughout his career he directed series and films including The Bill, Princes In The Tower, Trafalgar Battle Surgeon, The Relief Of Belsen, Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen and London’s Burning.

He was also nominated for an Emmy and a BAFTA, and in recent years had been teaching screenwriting at University College London.

In 2024, the brothers released the documentary Children Of The Wicker Man, which detailed their complicated legacy with their father’s magnum opus, a film that saw him sacrifice his family life before it bombed at the box office and later became a cult classic.

Before his death in 2016 at age 86, Robin Hardy spoke publicly about his desire to complete the Wicker Man trilogy after releasing The Wicker Tree in 2011.

After he died, the brothers were contacted and asked about plans for the third film, which Dominic said they then saw as the "impetus to close the chapter on the films".

He added: "After Children Of The Wicker Man, Justin was also going in a new direction and looking forward to writing more scripts. It’s just so sad that that’s not going to happen."

They then decided to wrap up their father’s film trilogy. Released this month, Wrath Of The Gods was inspired by a concept discovered in a recently unearthed script written by Robin and stars Game of Thrones’ Francis Magee and Norwegian actress Christiane Schaldemose.

It follows a woman isolated on an island where she is “torn between the ghosts of the past and the gods of the present” before being forced to confront “dark family secrets lurking in the shadows”.

Justin Hardy is survived by his wife, Larissa, and children Sam, Ludo, Nico and Summer.

Wrath Of The Gods will premiere at FrightFest in Leicester Square on August 28.