Hollywood Executive: Thanks for taking the time to come in to see us, Jennifer! We really appreciate it. You're doing us a huge favor, let me tell you.

Jackie Liu: Um, it's Jackie-

H: Right right right, sure sure sure ... anyway, we only got a few minutes. I'm meeting with Joseph Lawrence to discuss his role in this movie.

J: Wait, Joey Lawrence? "Whoa"?

H: So you've heard of him! Excellent. This guy is big news, the kids are gonna love him. He was on "Dancing with the Stars". Anybody who used to be anybody who lands on that show becomes somebody again! Mario Lopez was on it too. His agent wouldn't even take our calls!

J: Mario Lopez? Slater from "Saved By the Bell"? Can that guy even drive stick?

H: Small technicality. Anyway, here's what we're thinking: We want to do a modern remake of "Cannonball Run". Ever heard of it?

J: Of course I have. It's fantastic! My god, the cast alone – Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore. Dude, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were in it! And Adrie-

H: Yeah, anyway, like I said, we're gonna do a remake. But not just any remake! This one's gonna be cool, and funny, and really hip. I'm talking, "The Fast and The Furious" mixed with Chris Rock comedy and we'll get a few dorky Rick Moranis types to play the comedic cops, or maybe Tim Allen. Of course, we'll have to work on the female co-stars. I'm thinking date movie. We'll open Valentine's Day weekend. I'm not letting Drew Barrymore monopolize that box office weekend anymore.

J: Hang on a sec – first of all, it's probably not a good idea to make any comparisons to "The Fast and the Furious". That movie was a farce! It had improbably good looking so-called street racers driving fixed up cars and turning on the nitrous at redline. And it showed the car's intake manifold falling off because of it! I mean, shouldn't someone have pointed out that mistake?

H: So what? You saw the movie, didn't you? We made a killing on the toys.

J: I'm sure you did, but that's not the point! "Cannonball Run" is a classic. I mean, it was written by Brock Yates! It was a movie written by a real car guy, not some USC film school grad from the East Coast who doesn't have a driver's license. It has to maintain some accuracy, right?

H: Oh it will, it will. I mean, we'll use real cars – no CG for us! But our licensing guys are in talks right now with Ford and GM to see if we can get some dollars out of them in return for product placement. I mean, Ford paid a shitload to get their cars in "Ocean's Twelve". I think my intern counted 36 total seconds of visible placement. And my God, did you see the killing Dreamworks made on the "Transformers" movie? They made Bumblebee the new Camaro! Brilliant! That picture of Eva Mendes posing in front of it at the premiere is exactly what we'll need for "Banzai Bandits"! My mistress pointed it out to me in "US Weekly".

J: Wait, huh? What's "Banzai Bandits"?

H: That's the working title of our movie. You know, Banzai? Asian people? The kids who pose next to their cars and post them on MySpace?

J: Um, don't you think that's kinda racist? Not everyone who drives a sport compact car is some Asian street racing gang member. That just perpetuates stereotypes. The editor of "Import Tuner" magazine is some British guy!

H: Jenn, you're not thinking Hollywood! You gotta think big! People around the world have to be able to say the name of the movie in whatever language they speak. It has to be easy to pronounce and use hard syllables. Why do you think Tom Cruise is the biggest movie star in the world? Because people in Beijing and Moscow can easily pronounce his name. Get it? TOM. CRUISE.

J: Okay, never mind. We can work on that later. If you're gonna make it an updated version, you probably need to incorporate something new and current going on in the automotive world. Right now, drifting's big...

H: Bah! Been there, done that. They had that little rapper kid in that movie that was filmed in downtown LA.

J: Let me finish – you asked me to come in to consult and offer my expertise on what the next big thing is. If you ask me, it's gonna be Time Attack. In Hollywood-speak, it's the drama of man and machine against the clock. Your car has to be the fastest and the best handling -- it's that simple.

(Silence)

H: Okaaaaaaaay ... is it like NASCAR? Can we create a villain driver who will stop at nothing to win and bumps people off the track and fights to the finish with the hero?

J: Well, no. It's just one guy on the course at a time.

H: Hmm. Maybe we can adapt that into a big screen remake of "Speed Racer". Can we give the hero a co-pilot? A brother figure? A best friend who dies in a fiery crash 20 minutes before the ending?

J: Uh, no. There's no co-driver.

H: Well shit, that's kinda boring. What kind of cars are we talking about here? Ferraris? Porsches? Something we can hit up the big boys for?

J: Actually, the best cars for Time Attack tend to be older, rear-wheel drive subcompacts with engine and suspension modifications to improve power and handling. There are different competition classes. Every drivetrain has its own class. And because of the course layout, Ferraris and Porsches don't actually have any advantage over a Nissan 240SX.

H: A Nissan what? I think my buddy had one of those in high school when he used to deliver pizzas.

J: That's the one.