Bacon takes Chance on HBO TV movie

Footloose star joins project based on a real-life tale.

Kevin Bacon is making a rare foray into television to star in the Iraq war drama Taking Chance.

The HBO project chronicles the real-life journey of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl (Bacon), who as a volunteer military escort officer accompanied the body of 19-year-old Marine Chance Phelps, killed in action in Iraq, back to his hometown of Dubois, Wyoming, in spring 2004.

Strobl, a Desert Storm veteran, wrote the short story Taking Chance while serving with the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Virgina, in April 2004. He retired from the Marine Corps this year.

He developed the screenplay with Oscar-nominated producer Ross Katz (Lost in Translation), who will make his directing debut on the project.

Chance is slated to start production in the summer for a 2008 premiere on HBO.

Lt. Cpl. Chance Phelps was killed April 9, 2004, by hostile fire in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, and was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star with Combat Distinguishing Device.

Bacon most recently appeared in Showtime's 2004 film Cavedweller. Last year, he directed wife Kyra Sedgwick in an episode of her hit TNT series The Closer. He next appears in the features Death Sentence and Rails & Ties.

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