Filmmaker, Oliver Stone

Vietnamese media reported on September 6 that Hollywood director Oliver Stone is in the Southeast Asian nation researching material for his next movie, which will focus on the My Lai massacre.

Stone had reportedly arrived the previous day in the central city of Da Nang and went straight to the site of the 1968 massacre, in which U.S. troops killed more than 300 Vietnamese civilians, including many apparently unarmed women and children.

The incident provoked international outrage and undermined U.S. support of the war.

Stone, a Vietnam veteran and three-time Academy Award winner, has produced three previous movies about the Vietnam War: Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, and Heaven and Earth.

Vietnamese newspaper Tuoi Tre (Youth) reported that producer Nicholas Simon accompanied Stone. The newspaper quoted Simon as saying "We came to survey the field as part of the preparations for our new movie project Pinkville."

Released by United Artists and scheduled for a 2009 opening, Pinkville stars Bruce Willis as Army general William R. Peers, who in 1969 investigated the My Lai massacre.