The film, Who We Are Now, is about a woman trying to win back custody of her son after her release from jail.

Production on the film is underway in New York.

The 40-year-old writer/director's most recent film, From Nowhere, won an audience award at last year's South by Southwest film and media festival.

From Nowhere has only just gone into wider release in the US and has drawn largely positive reviews, a windfall that no doubt would have helped Newton close the deal for Who We Are Now.

From Nowhere, about undocumented teenagers living in the US, was described by The New York Times as "wrenching".

It was directed by Newton and written by Newton and Kate Ballen.

The AV Club praised the film for avoiding "preachiness and sanctimony, preferring to wrestle with the real world in all its stubborn complexity."

In securing a new film deal in the wake of From Nowhere's critical success, Newton has put some distance between the present and his high-profile struggles in the past.

In 2006 Newton was convicted of assaulting his then-girlfriend actress Brooke Satchwell; the conviction was overturned a year later.

That scandal essentially de-railed an emerging career for Newton as a respected actor, following well noted performances in Looking for Alibrandi in 2000 and the miniseries Changi in 2002.

In 2008 he starred in the Nine Network's critically acclaimed Underbelly franchise.

In 2010 another girlfriend, actress Rachael Taylor, took out an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) against Newton after two domestic violence incidents in a Rome hotel.

And in 2011 and 2012 Newton was charged over two more assaults, of a Sydney taxi driver in December, 2011, and of a hotel receptionist in Miami, Florida, in April, 2012.

In 2012 Newton spent three months in a rehab facility in California and then relocated to New York.

Last year it was reported Newton, the son of legendary Australian television personality Bert Newton, had become engaged to Catherine Schneiderman.

Schneiderman is the daughter of New York's attorney general Eric Schneiderman.