The story of US news anchor Walter Cronkite’s protest against the Vietnam war is being turned into a film by Steven Spielberg, according to Variety.

Cronkite, the host of CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981 covered many world-changing events, include the assassination of JFK and the Watergate scandal. However, it was as a reporter on – and a campaigner against – US involvement in Vietnam that he was best known and the most passionately engaged. He regularly called into question the US government’s assertion that the war in Vietnam was winnable and helped inspire a public outcry against the conflict.

Spielberg, whose last film, Bridge of Spies, was set during the cold war, is working with that film’s writer, Matt Charman, on the Cronkite story. It’s unclear as yet whether he will direct the project.

The director’s next film is an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG, which had its premiere at the Cannes film festival last month. Another collaboration with his Bridge of Spies star Mark Rylance, it was described by Peter Bradshaw as “having charm and sweetness in abundance” in his Guardian review.