Clancy, McTiernan Team for Film on Gulf War : Movies: The novelist and director are reuniting after their success with ‘The Hunt for Red October.’ ‘73 Easting’ will be Clancy’s first original screenplay.

Novelist Tom Clancy and director John McTiernan are in the final stages of negotiations with Universal Pictures to make a movie based on the experiences of three U.S. Army captains who led an assault on Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard during the Persian Gulf War, it was learned Friday.

The deal, which is expected to be completed early next week, calls for Clancy to write his first screenplay with the tentative title “73 Easting.” The movie would be made with the cooperation of the U.S. Army, sources said.

Clancy’s high-tech military novels have included such best-sellers as “The Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games.” They have long been a favorite of Pentagon officers because of the flattering way they portray the U.S. military.

Vecchio Productions, which would co-produce the movie with McTiernan’s Tongue River Productions, secured the rights to the stories of the three soldiers.

In essence, the movie would tell the story of how the three young captains spearheaded the assault into Iraq using high-tech American weaponry to defeat Hussein’s elite troops.

“What makes the story dramatic is the internal Army struggle that goes on between the old guard who say, ‘You can’t do things this way’ and these young Turks,” said a source.

“The older officers, who were in Vietnam and lived in the shadow of Vietnam are more conservative, more cautious,” said another source with knowledge of the story line. “When you’ve got young West Point graduates who were not alive during the Vietnam War, who believe in their high-tech weaponry . . . tensions cause the older group to clash with the younger group.”

The deal would reunite Clancy with McTiernan, who directed “The Hunt for Red October,” an enormous box-office hit for Paramount Pictures, which grossed more than $200 million worldwide. Another Clancy book adapted for the screen, “Patriot Games,” starring Harrison Ford, is scheduled to be released this June by Paramount. McTiernan also directed the box-office hit “Die Hard” and received mixed reviews for the recent film “Medicine Man.”

Producer Joseph Vecchio had initially visited the William Morris Agency to report that he had secured the rights to the soldiers’ stories. The agency, which also represents Clancy, said it would be a good chance for the novelist to branch out into film writing.

The idea was then shopped to McTiernan, who has a development deal with Universal, and negotiations between William Morris and the studio commenced. No money figure has been revealed and sources said no actors have been discussed.