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Though the feature directorial debut of “The Sopranos” director David Chase, the coming-of-age rock and roll drama Not Fade Away, went largely unnoticed, that’s not stopping him from moving on to his sophomore effort. Deadline has word that Paramount Pictures has picked up a spec script from Chase that will be the next film he directs. Little Black Dress will follow a female war veteran in her 20s who comes back from Afghanistan, struggling with a disability. With a new post-war job, she finds herself involved in a potentially lethal investigation alongside a superstitious NYPD detective who just might help her recover.
Chase created the hit HBO mob drama Sopranos, and had his film directorial debut in 2012 with Not Fade Away, a drama about music-obsessed teenagers in 1960s New Jersey that contained elements of autobiography, and was also released by Paramount.
As Deadline points out, the veteran-returning-home genre has picked up steam in Hollywood, as is to be expected with two wars in the Middle East. DreamWorks and Solar Films are also developing films about soldiers battling PTSD after a war, and as the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq draw to an end, we can expect more. Chase has already shown his facility with both violence and psychological drama, so on paper he seems like a perfect fit.
Worth noting: Veteran-returning films bear instant comparison to Hal Ashby’s 1978 classic Coming Home, and that’s the standard they’ll all be chasing. Watch Jon Voight’s famous (and largely improvised) monologue about life in Vietnam from that film’s conclusion:
