Joel Kinnaman is set to star in The Cell, a creature thriller from Sleeping Dogs director Adam Cooper, with Highland Film Group launching worldwide sales at this week’s American Film Market in Los Angeles.
Principal photography is scheduled to begin in February 2027. Cooper will direct from a screenplay by Evan Turner (Dear David) and Ben Zazove (Sherlock Gnomes).
Kinnaman plays Ryan Weaver, an investigative journalist preparing to expose a powerful pharmaceutical company when he wakes up imprisoned inside a secret medical testing facility. Told he is dangerously ill, Ryan discovers that patients are being isolated, drugged and subjected to disturbing experiments — and that his captors appear more interested in studying him than curing him. As his body begins to mutate, Ryan searches for an escape. But what he discovers in the facility’s lower levels suggests its operators are creating something far worse than the disease they claim to be treating.
“For a character that is in almost every frame of the film, it is a gift to have a lead actor as talented as Joel embody them, and I can’t wait to share this story with audiences,” Cooper said in a statement.
The film is produced by Jason Tamasco, Zak Kristofek and Keith Danko for Traction; Greg Silverman and Grant Torre for Caravan Media Services; Leigh Collier; and Matthew Bierman. Sherborne Media is providing a credit facility against the production’s rebates and incentives. Caravan, a joint venture between Stampede Ventures and Sherborne, is based in Riyadh and Los Angeles and provides production services and financing across the Middle East.
Executive producers include Alastair Burlingham, Gary Raskin, Bjorn Hovland, Michael Rifkin and Elizabeth A. Bell for Caravan, alongside Highland CEO Arianne Fraser and COO Delphine Perrier.
The project reunites Highland with Cooper following Sleeping Dogs, the Russell Crowe-led crime thriller. Cooper’s screenwriting credits also include Assassin’s Creed and Allegiant.
Kinnaman’s credits include The Suicide Squad, RoboCop, For All Mankind and Altered Carbon. He is represented by WME, Magnolia Entertainment, R&C PMK and Jill Smith at Kleinberg, Lange, Cuddy and Carlo. Cooper is represented by CAA, Anonymous Content and Jeff Frankel at McKuin Frankel Whitehead.