Reese Witherspoon to make new biopic about top female soldier

Actress Reese Witherspoon is set to make another biopic about one of the first female U.S. soldiers to be killed in action in Afghanistan.

The Wild star has picked up the movie rights to author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon's book Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield through her production company Pacific Standard.

The book details the achievements of First Lieutenant Ashley White, who became part of an elite group of female fighters to do battle in Afghanistan. She died in action in 2011 and was posthumously awarded a number of top military honors, including the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

Witherspoon, 38, is reportedly keen to take on the lead role, even though she's 14 years older than White when she died, according to Deadline.com.

The news of the war film emerges days after Clint Eastwood's American Sniper - about the life of top military marksman Chris Kyle - was named the country's highest-grossing movie of 2014 after grossing $337.2 million at the box office.

Witherspoon landed an Oscar nomination for her latest film Wild, in which she played real-life adventurer Cheryl Strayed.