Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in negotiations to star in Paramount and Bad Robot’s “The Cellar.”
The pic also stars John Goodman. Dan Trachtenberg will direct, with J.J. Abrams producing for Bad Robot.
Paramount had no comment on the casting.
The majority of the movie takes place in an underground cellar, and revolves around a young woman who wakes up in the cellar after a severe car accident and fears she has been abducted. Her captor, a doomsday prepper, tells her he saved her life and that there has been a terrible chemical attack that has left the outside uninhabitable. She does not know what to believe and as tensions rise, she decides she must escape, regardless of the terrors that await outside.
Dan Casey wrote the most recent version of the script. Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken penned the original draft.
Like all Insurge projects, the film will be budgeted at about $5 million to meet the company’s mandate of producing small-budget, high-concept pics.
Winstead is repped by WME and Anonymous Content and can be seen next in Focus’ “Kill the Messenger” opposite Jeremy Renner.
