Joel Kinnaman Set to Star in Creature Thriller The Cell

Joel Kinnaman is set to star in The Cell, a creature thriller, The Hollywood Reporter reported on Friday, 13 November. Adam Cooper will direct the film.

Kinnaman plays Ryan Weaver, an investigative journalist who wakes up imprisoned in a secret medical testing facility. The screenplay is by Evan Turner and Ben Zazove.

The film is being offered to buyers around the world at the American Film Market in Los Angeles. Highland Film Group is launching its worldwide sales campaign there. Worldwide sales means selling the right to release a film in each country, one territory at a time. The American Film Market is a trade event where sellers and buyers strike deals, often for films that are not yet finished.

Filming is scheduled to begin in February 2027. Principal photography is the main stretch of shooting, when most of the actors and the crew are on set.

Several companies are behind the production. Jason Tamasco, Zak Kristofek and Keith Danko produce for Traction. Greg Silverman and Grant Torre produce for Caravan Media Services. Leigh Collier and Matthew Bierman are also producers. Highland's chief executive, Arianne Fraser, and its chief operating officer, Delphine Perrier, are executive producers.

The project brings Highland back together with Cooper. The two worked on Sleeping Dogs, a crime thriller led by Russell Crowe, according to the same trade report.

Movie deals move in stages. A director is hired, a star commits, a sales company takes the film to market, and a start date is set. The Cell has now reached several of those stages at once. The next checkpoints are the start of filming in February 2027 and the buyers who sign up at the market.