Almodovar channels Franju

One of my many hopeless dream projects back when I was doggedly writing screenplays was a remake of George Franju's great "Eyes Without a Face," a plastic surgery melodrama that I planned to relocate from Paris to Beverly Hills. At that point the rights were owned by Disney, for some reason. I knew slightly the director who was developing the Disney remake and called him up. He said he doubted the Disney version would ever happen or that the rights would ever be relinquished -- in part because Disney would never want to watch another company  succeed where they'd failed. And even if Disney had retreated, the rights were a hellish tangle; in French law, all six (or so) of the original film's screenwriters could assert authorial privilage, and probably would. His advice? "You can always rip it off."