Par reports for duty

Peirce gets ready to 'Stop'

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Peirce

Rudin

Paramount beat out several bidding studios for "Stop-Loss," a drama to be directed by Kimberly Peirce about the controversial statute now used by the U.S. Defense Dept. to extend soldiers' combat time.

Par agreed to a $25 million budget and an April 1 start date based on a spec script written by Peirce and Mark Richard. Peirce will produce with Scott Rudin.

Story follows a soldier who returns home to Texas from Iraq but is then recalled with the "stop-loss" procedure. The pic's protagonist refuses to return to battle.

Peirce, who has not directed a movie since "Boys Don't Cry" in 1999 but has been linked to many, sparked to the subject when her own brother returned from a year of duty in Fallujah and was quickly called back.

Peirce began preparing a documentary about stop-loss, which has been on the books for decades but wasn't used much until the occupation of Iraq.

After Peirce and Richard worked on "The Ice at the Bottom of the World," they turned the docu into a dramatic script.

CAA shopped it with five minutes of interview footage from vets.

"You're always surprised by that kind of reaction, but the thing that drew us to the project is what appealed to studios," Peirce said. "This is a story about great guys who do the right thing by fighting for this country, and are then done wrong. The fatality rates for second and third tours are very high, and you understand why these guys feel like they've being asked to play another round of Russian roulette."

Peirce said she and Richard may use the numerous interviews they've done and make a docu that will accompany the DVD release.

Pic also amounts to another tour of duty at Par for producer Rudin, who moves his overall deal from the studio to Disney later this year.

Par execs Alli Shearmur and Pam Abdy will supervise.

"Stop-Loss" follows other controversial fare at Paramount. The studio just began production on an Oliver Stone-directed drama about the rescue of two Port Authority cops from the rubble of the World Trade Center, to be released Aug. 11, one month before the five-year anniversary of the attacks.