Hot off the success of three major series — the fifth season of For All Mankind, Imperfect Women, and Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole — Joel Kinnaman is set to continue this hot streak with TNT’s upcoming High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam. The limited series debuted its first trailer recently, ahead of a September release. Kinnaman now appears to firmly be in his streaming era, but for a few years around a decade ago, he was tipped to be the next major Hollywood leading man. This was around the same time that Taylor Kitsch and Armie Hammer were positioned as Kinnaman’s close competitors. Kinnaman secured leading roles in two major franchises, but neither of those two attempts panned out the way anyone involved would have liked.
In 2016, he played Rick Flag in David Ayer‘s ill-fated Suicide Squad, which was majorly retooled by the studio following the disappointing reception of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Although Suicide Squad was a box-office hit, grossing around $750 million worldwide against a reported budget of $175 million, the movie received poor reviews and caused controversy for its behind-the-scenes troubles. Kinnaman reprised his role in the soft reboot The Suicide Squad, directed by James Gunn five years later. That movie ended up underperforming at the box office, although it received positive reviews. In 2014, Kinnaman headlined what is arguably his biggest film, which recently saw a streaming viewership spike.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Joel Kinnaman’s Sci-Fi Tentpole Was Revived on Streaming
According to FlixPatrol, it was among the 10 most watched movies on the global Paramount+ viewership charts this past week, when the leaderboard was topped by the animated original Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. We’re talking, of course, about the RoboCop remake released in 2014. Directed by José Padilha, the movie surrounded Kinnaman with acclaimed actors such as Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, and Michael K. Williams in the supporting cast, with Abbie Cornish playing the female lead. The movie grossed around $240 million worldwide against a reported budget of $130 million, but received mixed reviews. It now holds a 50% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “While it’s far better than it could have been, José Padilha’s RoboCop remake fails to offer a significant improvement over the original.” Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
