Welcome back to the world of the cheap cash-in sci-fi sequel. The latest franchise to get the addition of a wheezing, grind-it-out fourth instalment is Species.

Admittedly, even the first film wasn’t exactly a quality chunk of entertainment, but that starred Sir Ben Of Kingsley, so clearly it had a higher pedigree than, say, Species III, which couldn’t even rustle up Michael Madsen and featured a fleeting cameo from Natasha Henstridge as Species lynchpin Sil/Eve, the alien mating-machine with a lust for bumping uglies.

Now comes part IV, which will likely head straight to video like the third film. The plot follows Miranda Hollander, a sexy university professor who gets an unwelcome shock when her “uncle”, Tom Hollander (no, not the Vanity Fair actor) reveals that- surprise! - she’s not human, but an alien hybrid he grew in a lab with colleague Forbes McGuire.  But there’s worse news in store when she starts behaving like her monstrous alien predecessors. Tom whisks her away to Mexico, where he hopes Forbes will be able to help cure her. But the solution might be worse than the problem….

TV movie director Nick Lyon is helming, from a script by Species III writer Ben Ripley. They’ll start shooting in Mexico City in October. We can hardly wait...