Mark Protosevich made his first produced screenplay with The Cell. Protosevich was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended film school at Columbia College. Graduating with honors in 1983, Protosevich spent four years teaching university-level film production courses and working as a freelance writer and illustrator. In 1987, his short film, Past Voices, won top prizes - the Gold Plaque and Gold Hugo - at the Chicago International Film Festival.
After his arrival in Los Angeles, Protosevich worked as a feature film development executive for Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and producers Dawn Steel and Scott Rudin.
The Cell also marked Protosevich’s screen writing debut. Since writing the sci-fi thriller, he has adapted Allan Folsom’s novel The Day After Tomorrow for producer Richard Zanuck, and he has adapted Richard Matheson’s classic horror novel, I Am Legend. The film version of the post-apocalyptic tale will be produced by Steve Reuther’s Bel Air Entertainment and released by Warner Bros., for whom Protosevich then scripted what was to be the fifth installment of the Batman series.
After a rewrite of Jan DeBont’s proposed alien western Ghost Riders in the Sky, Protosevich adapted the Philip K. Dick short story Impostor for director Gary Fleder. Originally intended as one-third of a sci-fi trilogy (including Danny Boyle’s Alien Love Triangle), Impostor is now expanded to feature-length.
