Christopher McQuarrie started out as a screenwriter (winning an Oscar for his early screenplay The Usual Suspects) and briefly segued into directing with The Way of the Gun in 2000. Now he is about to get back in the director’s chair for the Tom Cruise thriller One Shot, which he scripted and will direct as his second feature. And his third directorial effort may already be lined up.

McQuarrie has made a deal to write, direct and produce Rubicon, which will move the story and action of Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai to Afghanistan. Instead of samurai, the group of warriors will be Navy SEALs.

Deadline says that this is one of those new-fangled ‘cross-platform’ properties, which means the intent is to turn it into a movie, a graphic novel and a video game. Producers Mark Long and Dan Capel announced the whole project today at the New York Comic Con.

The idea is to make the SEALs a protective force fighting the Taliban. And while this project is probably happy to ride the current wave of interest in the special ops force, there’s insider knowledge here, too. Dan Capel was a founding member of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that took responsibility for killing Osama Bin Laden.

McQuarrie’s bother is also a SEAL, and the writer/director says of the project,

I’ve always been fascinated with Navy SEALs in general and their role in Afghanistan in particular. With Rubicon, Mark Long and Dan Capel have created the perfect environment for an intense action franchise.

Here’s the cover art for the graphic novel. You can see that it bears a deliberate resemblance to one classic image from Seven Samurai.