Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century Fox has acquired the spec From Mia With Love, a John Hughes-style comedy written by Seth Grahame-Smith, David Katzenberg, Bryan Shukoff and Kevin Chesley. Katzenberg will direct, and he and Grahame-Smith will produce under their Katsmith Productions banner. Grahame-Smith adapted his novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, which is being directed for the studio by Timur Bekmambetov and produced by Tim Burton.

The coming-of-age comedy is a mix of Risky Business and Weird Science. Some plot elements could change, but the pitched premise had three guys so desperate to lose their virginity that they order up a Russian mail-order bride, figuring they can send her back. She is smoking hot but arrives with baggage and no plans to bed the lads, though she helps the trio become more suitable mating material.

Katzenberg’s directing experience includes episodes of The Hard Times Of R.J. Berger, the MTV show the duo exec produce. Deal comes as Grahame-Smith, who also authored Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and scripted Dark Shadows, works on his next novel. The concept is under wraps, but it is his first book under a three-book deal with Grand Central, and he will write the movie script simultaneously. The four scribes are repped by WME; Shukoff and Chesley are additionally repped by Madhouse Entertainment.