After helming the first of the three-part Dracula miniseries for BBC One and Netflix, Jonny Campbell is returning to the film world for the first time in over a decade as Paramount Pictures has tapped him to helm the upcoming adaptation of the sci-fi novel Cold Storage, according to Variety.
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Written by screenwriter David Koepp in his novel debut and published in 2019, the story follows Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz as he is sent to investigate a suspected biochemical attack. But once he arrives, he finds something far worse: a highly-mutative organism capable of extinction-level destruction. After containing it and burying it in cold storage deep beneath a rarely-used military repository for decades, the specimen has escaped and is on a lethal feeding frenzy that only Diaz knows how to stop.
Koepp, who is best known in the film world as the go-to writer for major blockbusters including Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Angels & Demons, Panic Room and Zathura: A Space Adventure, will pen the adapted screenplay and produce alongside Gavin Polone.
After debuting the novel manuscript to the film market in 2018, a heated bidding war began amongst the major studios for the film rights to the book with Paramount proving to be the most aggressive and winning. The studio and Koepp have worked together for nearly 25 years, with the 56-year-old screenwriter penning 1996’s Mission: Impossible along with 1998’s Snake Eyes, 2005’s War of the Worlds, 2008’s Ghost Town and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and 2014’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.
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Though the studio is reportedly considering Cold Storage a major priority and is looking to fast track it, the worldwide pandemic has left the film without a production start date for the time being.
