Daisy Ridley Gets into Spycraft in 'Cleaner'

While most have heard of the Cannes Film Festival, one of the oldest international competitions, far fewer are aware of the Cannes Market, which happens simultaneously with the festival. The market is where executive producers with money to spend go to find their next films. Production studios with empty release slots to fill show up and sample what's available — aka indies made outside the studio system looking for buyers — and what could be available. The latter is usually the bulk of what you find at Cannes Market: semi-finished scripts, sometimes packaged with actors attached, sometimes with a filming berth reserved, who need to close funding gaps to get started.

Cannes Market is famous among a certain Hollywood set for drawing out some of the most outlandish packages put together by producers, with pie-in-the-sky ideas from producers who really ought to know better or pitched by the publicists for actors in the twilight of their careers, hoping to score one last blockbuster. It sometimes makes divining which will come to fruition and which are just hyperbole a complex effort. However, the 2023 Cannes Market was good to the "Daisy Ridley Hot Package," which offered her up to star in a James Bond-esque tale under the working title The Cleaner — the title was eventually reduced to Cleaner — that will hit theaters in February 2025.

The project initially only had Ridley attached, but Clive Owen (Monsieur Spade) was added to sweeten the deal, which was enough. Filming began in September 2023, and by mid-2024, Sky Original Films was on board. However, the film did not land an American distributor until December 2024. Now, with weeks to go before the February release date set by Sky, there's a trailer.

Here's the synopsis:

Set in present-day London, Cleaner takes place in, around, and on the side of One Canada Square, one of the UK’s tallest buildings. The film watches as a group of radical activists take over an energy company’s annual gala, seizing 300 hostages to expose the corruption of the hosts. Their just cause is hijacked by an extremist within their ranks, who is ready to murder everyone in the building to send his anarchic message to the world. It falls to an ex-soldier turned window cleaner suspended 50 stories outside the building to save those trapped inside.

Ridley plays Joey Locke, the ex-solider turned window-cleaner of the film's title; Owens plays the leader of the radical activists. The rest of the cast includes Ray Fearon (Champion), Rufus Jones (Rivals), Richard Hope (Poldark), Lee Boardman (The Trouble with Maggie Cole), Taz Skylar (One Piece), and Flavia Watson (Tis the Season to be Irish). 

Directed by the Bond franchise’s Martin Campbell, the script for Cleaner hails from Simon Uttley with Paul Andrew Williams (Broadchurch) and Marvel Studio's Matthew Orton. The executive producing team includes Thomas Fanning, Chris Arthur, and Cindy Cowan, plus Michael Kuhn & Gavin Glendinning for Qwerty Films,  and Sébastien Raybaud & Callum Christopher Grant for Anton.

Cleaner will be released in theaters on Friday, February 21, 2025.