Russell Crowe to make directing debut

Hollywood (top40 Charts) - After conquering ancient Rome and the Oscars (not to mention Meg Ryan), Russell Crowe's next assignment will be helming a war movie.

Variety reports Crowe will make his directing debut with "The Long Green Shore," a Second World War drama due to begin shooting in the South Pacific next spring.
Crowe's Hollywood stock has shot up since his acclaimed work in "The Insider" and his box-office and Oscar success with "Gladiator," but he has spurned most of the subsequent big-money offers in order to focus on "Long Green Shore".

Variety said the film will tell the story of an Australian battalion sent to New Guinea to attack retreating Japanese forces near the end of the war. They find a badly weakened and outgunned enemy, but the Australian soldiers are pushed by their commander to attack. It's not clear which character Crowe would play in the ensemble, although Variety said it's most likely he'd lean to either the Australian battalion's commander or a central character who narrates the film.

Crowe will next be seen in director Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" and is set to tour the U.S. with his band Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts. He will undertake a rewrite of the "Long Green Shore" screenplay before production begins