Charlize Theron's In The Valley Of Elah

When he’s not creating TV shows, cranking out scripts for Clint Eastwood and writing/directing Oscar winners, Paul Haggis likes to relax by, er, writing other scripts.

For a long time, it was thought that his next film would be politically finger-pointing drama Against All Enemies. But there was also a dark horse – a story based on Mark Boal’s Playboy article Death And Dishonour, which tracked an army father investigating the military’s claim of AWOL status for his son and finding a murder.

Now the army film has a title – In The Valley Of Elah, a cast (Charlize Theron and Tommy Lee Jones) and a newfound pole position in Haggis’ game plan. He’s making it his next job.

Jones is on board as the father figure, Hank Deerfield, a former Military Police and Vietnam veteran whose son Mike goes AWOL just after returning home from a tour in Iraq. When he decides to dig deeper into his son’s case, he finds help in the form of Emily Sanders (Theron), a homicide ‘tec based at the army’s Fort Rudd.

Haggis will start shooting the movie in December, with locations including New Mexico, Albuquerque and Morocco.