Universal Pictures has snapped up tyro scribe Jamie Moss' spec script "Last Man Home" for Ron Howard to direct and Brian Grazer to produce through Imagine Entertainment reports Variety.

Set in the days just before President George W. Bush launched full-scale war in 2003, story revolves around a covert U.S. military unit that is on the hunt for an AWOL American soldier in Iraq. The soldier is looking for his brother, who went missing when fighting in the first Gulf War.

There are several other Iraqi war projects now in the works, although studios have been slow to greenlight films about the ongoing conflict.