Kismet Entertainment Group, the LA-based production outfit behind British horror hit Dog Soldiers, has announced that it will produce Dog Soldiers 2 as well as two new pictures in alliance with Peter Hoffman's Seven Arts Pictures.

Kismet, headed by entrepreneur David E Allen, first connected with Hoffman on the recently completed No Good Deed starring Samuel L Jackson and Milla Jovovich. The company has now boarded true life gangster saga Stander and horror flick Asylum based on the best-selling novel by Patrick McGrath.

Stander is the story of Andre Stander and his gang of fellow bank robbers, who from Oct 1983 to Feb 1984 were South Africa's most-wanted men. The $15m film is being readied for an Aug start in Johannesburg and Florida with director Bronwen Hughes (Forces Of Nature, Harriet The Spy) at the helm. Scripted by Bima Stagg, it will star Thomas Jane (Original Sin, The Sweetest Thing, Deep Blue Sea) in the role of Stander.

Producers are Hoffman, Allen, Julia Verdin, Susan Hoffman, Izidore Codron and Hillard Elkins.

Meanwhile, Asylum is the story of a socialite who falls under the spell of a patient in her husband's insane asylum. It stars Natasha Richardson and will be directed by David Mackenzie (The Last Great Wilderness) who recently took over from Paul McGuigan. Paramount Classics is scheduled to handle North American distribution on the film which will start shooting in 2003 in Ireland. Producing alongside Allen are Mace Neufeld (The Sum Of All Fears et al) and Harmon Kaslow.

Kismet was represented by its vice president of business affairs Stephen Zager in the negotiations for Stander and Asylum and Hoffman represented Seven Arts.

Meanwhile Dog Soldiers, which premiered in the US on The Sci-Fi Channel but was a big theatrical hit for Pathe Distribution in the UK (over $3m gross in April) and a big seller for The Victor Film Co in the rest of the world, will be sequelised, although Kismet has yet to attach a writer and director. Dog Soldiers won best picture awards at the Luxembourg Film Festival and the Brussels International Festival Of Fantasy, Thriller and Science Fiction Films.