Joel Kinnaman is set to lead The Cell, a creature thriller directed by Sleeping Dogs filmmaker Adam Cooper. Highland Film Group is launching worldwide sales for the project at this week’s American Film Market in Los Angeles, with principal photography scheduled to begin in February 2027.
Cooper will direct from a screenplay by Evan Turner, whose credits include Dear David, and Ben Zazove, who worked on Sherlock Gnomes.
Inside the Medical Nightmare
Kinnaman will play Ryan Weaver, an investigative journalist who is preparing to expose a powerful pharmaceutical company. Before he can do so, Ryan awakens as a prisoner in a secret medical testing facility and is informed that he is dangerously ill.
He soon discovers that the facility’s patients are being isolated, drugged and put through disturbing experiments. Ryan also realizes that the people holding him appear to be more focused on studying him than providing a cure.
The threat becomes increasingly personal when Ryan’s body begins to mutate. His attempt to escape eventually takes him into the facility’s lower levels, where he uncovers evidence suggesting that its operators are creating something more dangerous than the disease they claim to be treating.
Cooper indicated that the role will keep Kinnaman at the center of the film for nearly its entire running time.
“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 Team Behind The Cell
Jason Tamasco, Zak Kristofek and Keith Danko are producing for Traction. Greg Silverman and Grant Torre are producing for Caravan Media Services, alongside producers Leigh Collier and Matthew Bierman.
Sherborne Media is providing a credit facility against the production’s rebates and incentives. Caravan Media Services is a joint venture between Stampede Ventures and Sherborne. Based in Riyadh and Los Angeles, the company provides financing and production services across the Middle East.
Executive producers include Alastair Burlingham, Gary Raskin, Bjorn Hovland, Michael Rifkin and Elizabeth A. Bell for Caravan. Highland Film Group CEO Arianne Fraser and COO Delphine Perrier are also executive producing.
The Cell marks another collaboration between Highland and Cooper after Sleeping Dogs, the crime thriller led by Russell Crowe. In addition to directing that film, Cooper has screenwriting credits that 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.
ShowBiz Take
The Cell gives Kinnaman a particularly demanding assignment: carrying a story in which his character appears in almost every frame while moving from investigative danger into imprisonment, experimentation and physical mutation. That combination makes the lead performance central not only to the film’s dramatic tension, but also to its creature-thriller premise.
The project is also significant as a reunion between Cooper and Highland following Sleeping Dogs. With worldwide sales beginning at the American Film Market and a financing and production team already identified, the film has established its principal creative and business framework well ahead of cameras rolling.
What Happens Next?
Highland Film Group’s worldwide sales effort is underway at the American Film Market in Los Angeles. The next confirmed production milestone is principal photography, currently scheduled to start in February 2027.