Piracy BAD! BAD Pirate! Bad, BAD Pirate!!

So I watched Diva again last night, courtesy of my Amazon DVD Rental by post subscription. It's perhaps one of the coolest films ever made, and holds up pretty well after 25 years. If you're not familiar with it, the plot revolves around young Jules, who makes a bootleg tape recording of a concert of his favourite diva, Cynthia Hawkins, purely for his own enjoyment, as she refuses to make any records (the film marginally predates the CD). He ends up with two sets of villains on his tail, both trying to get the recording (one for the wrong reason).

Now I could imagine the director facing a few problems if he tried to make the movie today:

JEAN-JACQUES BENEIX: Good morning, gentlemen.

FIRST MOVIE EXEC: Hi there Jacques, may I call you Jacques? I just wanted you to know how excited we are about doing your movie.

SECOND MOVIE EXEC: Oh, totally, totally excited. I mean, we're thinking, Orlando for the lead, and Walken for the police chief. Am I right?

FIRST MOVIE EXEC: Oh yeah. But, ah, Jacques, just before we get to that... about the opening scene....

JEAN-JACQUES BENEIX: Yes?

SECOND MOVIE EXEC: Well, we've got this young guy, right, and he's sitting in the Paris Opera, and he's got a mini-disk recorder on his lap, right...

JEAN-JACQUES BENEIX: Yes?

FIRST MOVIE EXEC: Well, he's recording the performance.

SECOND MOVIE EXEC: I mean, he's a fucking pirate, for God's sake. Little bastards just like him are sitting in movie theatres all across America, right now, taking bread from our mouths! (Wipes spittle from lower lip.)

JEAN-JACQUES BENEIX: But zis is ze central conflict zat drives ze story: as Jules is making love to Cynthia, he knows if she knew he was ze pirate who is causing her all zis trouble...

FIRST MOVIE EXEC: But Jacques, baby, we can't have the hero doing that! No-one will want to play him, I guarantee you! Forget Orlando, baby!

JEAN-JACQUES BENEIX: Actually, I was zinking of Johnny Depp...

SECOND MOVIE EXEC: Oh, fucking GREAT!! The Pirate of the Caribbean himself!

FIRST MOVIE EXEC: You know, I'm starting to think maybe this wasn't such a good idea...

SECOND MOVIE EXEC: Yeah, I mean, opera?? What were those guys thinking?

FIRST MOVIE EXEC: You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Da Vinci Code...

SECOND MOVIE EXEC: ...meets Pretty Woman!

FIRST MOVIE EXEC: No, you moron! Were you dropped on your head as a child? Listen to me...

EXECS walk off, arguing, leaving JEAN-JACQUES BENEIX alone. Very alone.