Bob Hoskins has joined Rhona Mitra on the cast of Rogue Pictures' action thriller Doomsday, Neil Marshall's follow-up to his horror hit The Descent.

Production is set to begin on Feb 9 in South Africa. Crystal Sky Pictures' Steven Paul and Benedict Carver are producing and Intrepid Pictures principals Trevor Macy and Marc D Evans are serving as executive producers.

Creative executive Alex Heineman is overseeing the project for Rogue, which holds worldwide distribution rights to the story of an elite team of specialists that has to battle through a quarantined country to find the cure to a deadly virus.

Hoskins will play a career police officer who nominates Mitra for the mission and monitors its progress. Sean Pertwee, Alexander Siddig and Adrian Lester are also among the cast.

The project marks Marshall's third consecutive collaboration with cinematographer Sam McCurdy and production designer Simon Bowles. Paul Hyett will handle special make-up effects, as he did on The Descent.

'Doomsday is going to be a true thrill-ride for audiences, and we're delighted to have this fine cast and crew aboard,' Rogue co-presidents Andrew Karpen and Andrew Rona said.

Rogue and Crystal Sky Pictures are partnering on writer-director Paul W S Anderson's Castlevania, adapted from the video game about Dracula's origins.