The thematic V's of today's movie development article are Virginity and Vietnam:

  • Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (American Reunion) will produce and possibly direct Cherries, an R-rated comedy about three dads who try to stop the pact their daughters made to lose their virginity on prom night.
  • Matt Cook will write and direct the adaptation of Matterhorn, set in 1969 on a fire-support base located between Laos and the DMZ amid the Vietnam War.

Hit the jump for details on both projects.

jon-hurwitz-hayden-schlossberg-cherries

Good Universe acquired Jim and Brian Kehoe's spec script Cherries.  Hurwitz and Schlossberg are on board to produce, and are currently in negotiations to develop the project as a directing vehicle.  Variety mentions there is potential to "launch a comedy franchise," which is not immediately apparent in the premise.  The dads stop them on prom night, but oh no!  Now the girls want to have sex at college. Hurwitz and Schlossberg have become major players in the R-rated comedy game after their work on the Harold & Kumar franchise.  They are also attached to direct an untitled cop comedy.

Matterhorn is based on the novel of the same name by decorated Vietnam veteran Karl Malantes.  According to Variety, Malantes spent more than 30 years writing the book.  Cook, an Iraq war veteran, bonded with Marlantes in 2009 when the book was released and so had first dibs on the film rights.  Cook's script Triple Nine earned a spot on the 2010 Black List, a collection of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays.  John Hillcoat is attached to direct, which will likely make Triple Nine Cook's first produced feature credit.

Here is the synopsis for Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War:

An incredible publishing story—written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, a New York Times best seller for sixteen weeks, a National Indie Next and a USA Today best seller—Matterhorn has been hailed as a “brilliant account of war” (New York Times Book Review). Now out in paperback, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever. [Amazon]

matterhorn book cover