Kate Beckinsale, Dermot Mulroney, Robert Knepper and Sticky Fingaz will headline Drifter, an action-thriller now filming across Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. Deadline reported the casting and production details on 7 August 2026.

The film centres on Wendy Ford, an interim police chief who arrests a mysterious drifter and then finds herself trapped inside her own isolated station. Impostors posing as FBI agents and a heavily armed mercenary squad lay siege, determined to free one of her prisoners. The premise reads like a single-location pressure cooker — a cop, a locked building, and overwhelming force at the doors.

Beckinsale, long associated with the Underworld franchise, takes the lead as Ford. Mulroney, whose career stretches from My Best Friend's Wedding to Scream VI, joins alongside Knepper, a character actor familiar to audiences from Prison Break and Heroes. Rounding out the principal cast are Bill Sage, Beau Bommarito, Ema Horvath, Maia Kai and John Cerasani.

Randall Emmett directs. Emmett has been a prolific producer for more than a decade, with credits on Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, Scorsese's Silence, and Mark Wahlberg's Lone Survivor. His most recent film, the action thriller The Gentleman Thief starring John Travolta, was released by Vertical on 28 July 2026 — barely two weeks ago.

Behind the camera, the financing structure is straightforward by independent-film standards. Convergence Entertainment — the production and finance company founded by Emmett and Joel Cohen — produces and fully funds the picture, in association with Dream Team Films. Emmett and Cohen serve as producers. For independent films, "fully financed" means the production company has covered the budget itself rather than relying on a studio or preselling distribution rights in multiple territories to raise the money upfront.

Emmett's career has not been without turbulence. In 2022 and 2023 he faced multiple allegations of industry wrongdoing, which he denied. Production did not stop: since then he has directed or produced several features, including Alarum with Sylvester Stallone and Scott Eastwood and High Rollers starring Travolta.

No release date or distributor has been announced for Drifter. With cameras rolling in Ohio, a 2027 release window is a reasonable expectation for an independently financed thriller of this scale, though no timetable has been confirmed.