A major movie will be making a buzz in Kent this weekend.

Just days after Tom Cruise created a stir by flying in to film the Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning in Chatham Historic Dockyard, the crew of The Beekeeper, which stars Jeremy Irons and Jason Statham, will be taking over the Kingsferry Bridge between Sheppey and Sittingbourne.

The bridge will be off limits to the public from Friday evening to Monday morning.

The crime adventure is being made by top director David Ayer for Miramax.

The Beekeeper follows a man's brutal campaign for vengeance after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organisation known as The Beekeepers.

Statham, 55, who was also in The Expendables, is known for portraying tough, hard-boiled characters in gritty action-thrillers.

He was an untrained unknown when director Guy Ritchie cast him as a con artist in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998. He more recently starred in Ritchie's Wrath of Man.

Oscar-winner Irons, 74, rose to fame in the ITV series Brideshead Revisited. His first major film role was in The French Lieutenant's Woman.

He went on to star in The Mission (1986) and the psychological thriller Dead Ringers (1988) before voicing Scar in Disney's The Lion King (1994). He also played Simon Gruber in the action film Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Humbert Humbert in Lolita (1997) and Aramis in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998).

More recently he appeared in Assassin's Creed (2016) before portraying Alfred Pennyworth in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Justice League (2017), The House of Gucci and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).

The Beekeeper also features Emmy Raver-Lampman (The Umbrella Academy), Bobby Naderi (Under the Shadow) and Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games).

Filming in the UK began last month. The script is by Kurt Wimmer.

MGM has acquired the film for US distribution after it was announced at Cannes earlier this year.

The producers are Bill Block (Wrath Of Man) for Miramax, Chris Long for Cedar Park Studios and Statham and Wimmer.

Block told the trade website Deadline.com: “Having collaborated with Jason on Wrath Of Man and Operation Fortune and with David on Fury, we are fortunate to partner with these masters of the new action genre to bring Kurt’s brilliant script to the first instalment of this franchise.”

Kingsferry Bridge is to be closed from 4am on Saturday (Oct 29) to 10pm on Sunday (Oct 30), weather permitting.

High winds forced filming work on the ITV drama Too Close, which used the bridge for a spectacular £100,000 stunt, to be abandoned on its first weekend of closure.

The Sheppey Crossing will remain open. A shuttle service will carry bicycles and mopeds, normally banned from the Sheppey Crossing, to and from the Island. There will be no train services to Sheerness on the Sunday.

Network Rail had already scheduled maintenance work before the film company commandeered the bridge.

The shoot has been coordinated by the Kent Film Office.

A BBC crew has just finished shooting scenes on Sheppey for the popular crime drama Silent Witness starring Emilia Fox and David Caves.

It will be shown in the new year.