Though war movies usually follow the tradition of appearing years after the actual war is concluded, a new film being developed from Universal Pictures in California will take on the war in Iraq and the battle for Falluja as combat continues.

Weeks ago, the studio announced that veteran Hollywood actor Harrison Ford (of the famed Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies) is ready to portray US Major General James Mattis in a new film. This film will tackle the story of how the US Marine commander led an assault on Falluja following the murder and mutilation of four American contractors in March 2004.

According to Hollywood legalese, Ford is “attached” to the project, meaning he will star in the film if it is indeed made as planned—he is not under formal contract, according to a CNN.com article. In fact, Universal has only issued funds to develop a screenplay at this time.

Double Features, a Universal Pictures production company optioned the rights to No True Glory, a book written by Marine veteran Bing West and his son Owen that is due out in May from Random House Publishing. Owen West, also a Marine, is a rifleman in Iraq. Bing West, a former US assistant defense secretary, is now covering the war as a foreign correspondent, according to studio literature.

The March assault on Falluja, which was ordered after the gruesome killings of the contractors (who were burned by crowds of angry Iraqis as reported by various news agencies at the time), was abruptly halted by the White House 48 hours later, as the Marines were close to taking the city. At the time, the Marine unit suffered 28 casualties.

Six months later, after President George W. Bush won the US election, the Marines were ordered back to Falluja and took the city in a series of gruesome battles that left more than 50 Marines (and numerous Iraqis) dead.

The film will be more than just the battle story of Falluja, Universal Studio executives said in a press conference. It will be a “study of the connections between war and politics as seen through the eyes of the troops, their commanders, and civilian leaders,” a Universal spokesperson said last week.

The film is commanding some rather early buzz, although the screenplay is just being developed and no money has been set aside for production. Though other movies, like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Jehane Noujaim’s Control Room have focused their documentary cameras on the Iraq war while it is happening, this would be the first “based on facts” fictional drama coming out of the war.

The timing of the movie is also unique—being explored, written, and possibly filmed and produced while the war is still being fought. Flicks like Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor came out nearly 50 years after the wars they mimicked. Even more recent flicks like Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (about Somalia) and Behind Enemy Lines (about Bosnia) still put a few years between the events and the release of the films.

But with the war in Iraq, Hollywood and the media have elevated the presence of their cameras to an almost intrusive level. The upsurge of embedded journalists has brought the war to the newspapers and televisions of people around the world with extreme immediacy.

Hollywood’s role in the war and in the last presidential election also has set new standards in the relationship between entertainment and government. Whereas in the past, the movie-going public had time to differentiate between fact and Hollywood’s fictional take on the facts, the overlapping of the proposed Universal Pictures Falluja film and the continuing war in Iraq may serve to blur further what is real and what isn’t.

Of course, at this early stage in the game, with only the studio’s approval to develop a screenplay, a final release date may occur after the end of the war—if there is a final end.

* Dilshad D. Ali's writing reaches across the United States to address lifestyle topics pertinent to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Ali has covered movie premieres, film festivals, art exhibitions, concerts, and numerous other cultural stories, including the affect of September 11 on New York’s cultural landscape for IslamOnline. Ali, a 1997 University of Maryland journalism graduate, resides in New York with her husband and two children.

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