In the Sequel, She Vaults Into the Batmobile

My people took a meeting with the people at Fox, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Columbia, Orion and Universal, simultaneously. They all wanted to hear my idea.

“It’s about this girl,” I said. “She’s Romanian.”

“Meryl Streep,” a studio head said.

“Not so fast. When the story opens, she’s 14 years old.”

“Molly Ringwald.”

“Just listen,” I said. “She’s a gymnast. She was born in Moldavia.”

“Where’s Moldavia?” the Fox head said.

“Next to Ishtar,” the Columbia head said.

“Never mind Moldavia,” I said. “This girl starts training at age 6.”

“I thought you said 14,” the Orion head said. “Now we gotta find somebody 6?”

“Maybe the kid from the Cosby show,” the Disney head said.

“Slow down,” I said. “Forget 6. She’s 14. She’s 4-foot-11. She’s in the Montreal Olympics. She’s got millions of people watching her, but she gets perfect scores--the first perfect scores ever. Seven of them.”

“Fabulous,” the Warners’ head said.

“Sensational,” the Columbia head said.

“Sort of like Rocky, except she’s a girl and she’s Romanian,” the Paramount head said.

“I hear the girl from ‘Married With Children’ can do dialects,” the Fox head said.

“Holly Hunter can pass for 14,” the Universal head said.

“Wait,” I said. “Forget 14. Cut to 13 years later. She’s a grown woman. She’s older, more mature, a little chubby.”

“Roseanne!” the Orion head said.

“Perfect! We’ve been looking for something for Roseanne!” the Warners’ head said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Disney head said. “Roseanne can’t do Romanian.”

“Hey, it doesn’t have to be exact,” the Columbia head said.

“Hang on,” I said. “She’s still thin--just not as thin as before. Actually, she looks pretty good.”

“OK, then. I still say Streep.”

“Can Streep do a 28-year-old gymnast?”

“Hey, Streep can do an armadillo if she has to.”

“Let me finish,” I said. “This woman sneaks out of Romania in the middle of the night. She leaves in darkness, crawls through fences, dodges soldiers, doesn’t even tell her family she’s leaving. She wants to defect to America.”

“I like it. Patriotic movies are hot,” the Universal head said.

“This sounds like TV stuff to me,” the Fox head said.

“Where’s the violence? Where’s the profanity? Where’s the sex?”

“How about this?” I asked. “It turns out she’s involved with a Florida roofer who’s married and a father of four. She breaks up his marriage. People call her a home wrecker. And she says: ‘So what?’ ”

“Fabulous,” the Paramount head said.

“Sensational,” the Orion head said.

“Doesn’t sound right for us,” the Disney head said.

“She sounds hard. She sounds mean,” the Columbia head said. “Maybe Glenn Close could do it.”

“She could kidnap the roofer’s wife or cook her pet rabbit or something.”

“What’s the roofer’s name?”

“Constantine,” I said. “Or something like that.”

“I like it. We get Sean Connery or somebody.”

“He’s torn. He’s in love with his wife, but he’s always wanted to have an affair with a gymnast.”

“She seduces him on the uneven bars.”

“Or on a roof, while he’s, you know, roofing.”

“That’s it. We use the song, ‘Up on the Roof.’ You know, like ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘Sea of Love.’ ”

“Wait. We don’t want the woman to be too unsympathetic.”

“What’s her name?”

“Nadia Comaneci,” I said.

“Ugh. We’ll have to change that. Too foreign.”

“Why? We used Amadeus. He was foreign.”

“We’ll call it: ‘Swing to Freedom.’ ”

“No way. We call it: ‘Hop, Jump and Skip.’ ”

“Can we buy the rights to her story?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Soon as she got to America, Nadia said she wanted to make a movie about her life.”

“Will it play in Peoria?”

“Is anybody interested in Romanians in Peoria?”

“Nobody’s even interested in Romanians in Moldavia.”

“Nadia’s a hot subject,” I said. “Some people say she’s a brave, gutsy woman. Other people say she should be deported. The important thing is, we should hurry up and make a movie before everybody forgets who she is.”

“I can hear the critics now,” the Fox head said. “ ‘On a scale of one to 10, 10 being best, Nadia scores another perfect 10!’ ”

“We could even bring back Bo Derek,” the Universal head said.

“Is that the one who plays for the Raiders?” the Columbia head said.

“Streep,” the Disney head said.

“Cher,” the Warners’ head said.

“We put Madonna in that gymnastic leotard, we gross $200 million, easy,” the Orion head said.

It opens next Christmas, at a theater near you.