Indeed one of the hardest working men in show-business, Samuel L. Jackson has joined John Cusack in Benaroya Pictures’ and The Genre Company’s adaptation of Stephen King’s CELL. 

The apocalyptic horror novel, published in 2006, follows a New England artist struggling to reunite with his young son after a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell phone network turns the majority of his fellow humans into mindless, vicious animals.

So, essentially, a cautionary tale about cell phone usage?

Jackson has signed up to play a character named Tom McCourt, a described in the novel as a middle-aged man who teams up with the character Cusack plays (Clayton Riddell) during the chaos that the mysterious signal broadcast creates, on the move, navigating the death and destruction around them, with a small group in tow, all trying to survive.

It sounds like The Walking Dead, doesn’t it?

Tod “Kip” Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) is directing from a screenplay adaptation written by King himself, alongside Adam Alleca, with principal photography set to start in early 2014.

The project will be shopped at the American Film Market (AFM), which starts this week.

The busy Samuel L. Jackson will reprise his role as Nick Fury in the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger (titled Winter Soldier), and will play President of the USA, co-starring with Onni Tommila, in a thriller titled Big Game – Finnish director Jalmari Helander’s English-language debut.