This is an old, old, story, but it appears to have reached a conclusion–for this installment, anyway. Starting back in 2006 with Underworld: Evolution, Kate Backinsale has been awfully eager to bail from her highly successful movie franchise and take on the more serious roles she feels she ought to be taking. Yet somehow, she always comes back. Now, after years of hemming and hawing, Kate has signed on for Underworld 4, to be released in 2011 in glorious 3D. (At this rate, the only films not shot in 3D by 2011 will be documentaries about Mobius strips.)

Kate still hopes to minimize her involvement in the project, maybe by passing the torch to one of her were/vampire daughters and possibly killing off her character for good. Not gonna happen. Come Underworld 8: Grumpy Old Undead Things (to be released in 2019 in 4D SchizoVision), Selene will have become an oracular shrunken head or something, and Kate will be contractually obliged to take the role. Those pics/videos the producers are blackmailing her with must be absolutely awesome.