Although William Monahan‘s been making big waves in Hollywood as a writer — he won the Oscar for The Departed – Atlas Independent has just aided his second directorial effort, Mojave. According to Deadline, this will be the fourth project for Independent, an offshoot of Charles Roven‘s Atlas Entertainment, and will begin production sometime in August in Southern California.

Monahan has also scripted Body of Lies, Edge of Darkness, and his helming debut, London Boulevard. As Hollywood usually likes to do with bigger projects, the plot specifics are being kept quite for Mojave. However, we do have some of Monahan‘s thoughts on the upcoming project, which you can read below:

“Working with Chuck Roven and Atlas is perfection from my point of view, and has already led to a brilliant ongoing relationship. It’s the strongest possible company and they’re specifically in the business of protecting quality work. Atlas and I have decided to do a lot of work together and here we go.”

Atlas Independent producer William Green also noted that “this script is Monahan at his absolute best.” Although I’m not usually one to listen to production gossip by those involved in the project, I do have high hopes for anything that comes from the man who wrote The Departed. I mean, come on… who didn’t love Matt Damon‘s highly inappropriate firefighter comments at the beginning of the movie?

Monahan will produce the project alongside Green, while Atlas’ Andy Horwitz and Alan Glazer will be executive producing with Suzanne Jones of Henceforth Pictures.

Are you interested in seeing another film from Monahan?