Three-time Oscar-winner Ang Lee is to adapt Ben Fountain's acclaimed novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk for the big screen, Sony Pictures Entertainment's TriStar Productions announced.
The film will be Lee's first since winning the 2013 Academy Award for directing Life of Pi.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk will be produced by Lee, Ink Factory's Stephen Cornwell, Rhodri Thomas and Simon Cornwell, and Film4, which originally optioned the book.
Simon Beaufoy wrote the script for the movie, which is about 19-year-old U.S. soldier Billy Lynn and his squad, who survive an Iraq battle captured by embedded news cameras, causing them to become celebrated as heroes, a synopsis said.
No casting for the film has been revealed yet.
"I am very excited to be going back to work and to be collaborating with my old friend [TriStar chairman] Tom Rothman. The most important thing to me is storytelling and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a story that immediately gripped me. I look forward to starting the creative process with this extraordinary team of collaborators," Lee said in a statement.
"Ang Lee is constitutionally incapable of repeating himself. His very DNA requires him to always find new challenges," Rothman said. "'More of the same' may be the film fashion these days, but thankfully not for this exceptional artist. Ang Lee's Billy Lynn will be a true original, and TriStar is in the business of investing in originality, here combined with innovation. Big movies come from such combinations, as witness Life of Pi. We are grateful to Ink Factory, Simon Beaufoy and Ben Fountain for trusting TriStar with Billy's story."
Lee previously collaborated with Sony on his classic films Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sense and Sensibility.