EXCLUSIVE*: X-Men* and Ready Player One star Tye Sheridan is to front crime drama The Night Clerk, written and directed by Original Sin director and Bonfire of the Vanities screenwriter Michael Cristofer. The film is produced by David Wulf, producer of forthcoming Nic Cage vehicle Looking Glass, and Highland Film Group, which is launching it at Berlin next week.

The feature sees Sheridan star as a hotel night clerk Bart Bromley, an intelligent young man on the autism spectrum, who uses secret surveillance cameras to record guests in an effort to improve his social interaction skills. However, when a woman is murdered Bromley becomes the prime suspect and he refuses to reveal his illegal cameras that would prove his innocence. As the police investigation closes in, he becomes close to a beautiful guest named Andrea, but soon realizes he must stop the real murderer before she becomes the next victim.

Principal photography begins in Utah in May. Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier’s Highland Film Group, the firm behind Margot Robbie’s Terminal and Jason Momoa’s Braven, will begin international sales at the EFM in Berlin with Highland and The Gersh Agency co-repping U.S. sales.

It is the latest role for rising actor Sheridan, who is set to star in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, which is released by Warner Bros on March 29, and Alexandre Moors’ The Yellow Birds, which is released in June. He’s just off the back of X-Men: Apocalypse, where he revived his role as Cyclops, and has also appeared in Jeff Nichols’ Mud after breaking through in Terrence Malik’s The Tree Of Life.

The Night Clerk is the directorial return for Cristofer, who last directed Antonia Banderas and Angelina Jolie’ erotic thriller Original Sin in 2001 and Jolie’s Jay McInerney-penned HBO movie Gia in 1998. More recently he has been in front of the camera with roles in TV series including Mr Robot, American Horror Story and Ray Donovan. Sheridan is represented by WME, Mosaic and Stone, Genow, Smelkinson, Binder & Christopher and Cristofer is represented by The Gersh Agency and Parseghian Planco.

Other titles on Highland’s Berlin slate include Berlin, I Love You with Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley, Vaughn Stein’s Terminal, Jon Avnet’s Three Christs starring Richard Gere, Eric Bress’ supernatural psychological thriller Ghosts of War, Lin Oeding’s Braven, Scott Mann’s Final Score starring Dave Bautista and Pierce Brosnan; and a remake of The Crow directed by Corin Hardy.