Camera pans the sun-filled office of a Hollywood player. We see the studio executive taking a meeting with a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who has just finished pitching his movie idea.

MR. BIG-STUFF STUDIO EXECUTIVE
(excitedly)
That was a great story. I think we'd like to take an option on it.

INTERNET GAZILLIONAIRE
(suddenly nervous)
I think it's really a little early to be issuing options in a company that we'd be forming around the movie, because I wouldn't know how to value it.

MR. BIG-STUFF STUDIO EXECUTIVE
(magnanimously)
We'll take the risk on it. That's the whole point of this. We'll take the option without knowing whether or not it's worth anything.

INTERNET GAZILLIONAIRE
(more consternation)
Wait a minute. I still don't know how I can form a business entity around this thing. And we need to do that before we can possibly issue options.

The two men look at each other in dismay and confusion.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXTERIOR: SAN FRANCISCO LOFT START-UP

This isn't a scene from a cringe-inducing Hollywood-meets-Silicon Valley drama. It's what really happened when Steve Perlman, the entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of WebTV, pitched his Silicon Valley movie concept to a Hollywood studio exec. Of course, optioning an idea for a movie is different from issuing options in a start-up company. After five minutes of going around in circles, they figured out that one was talking about "an option" and the other was talking about "options." Hollywood and Silicon Valley -- they just don't speak the same language.

These days, though, both the dot-communists and the film- and TV-makers are straining to learn each other's vernacular. Because just as the avalanche of hype about dot-com riches is mercifully subsiding, Hollywood is warming up to the idea of telling a story that captures the industry's glory days. Think -- "Start-up, The Movie": You'll laugh, You'll cry! Your options will be worthless!

There are, apparently, no less than three movies with the title "IPO" in the works. Practically every narrative about tech entrepreneurship or Net culture -- from Michael Lewis' "The New New Thing" to Jerry Kaplan's "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure" to Jon Katz's "Geeks" -- has been optioned either for TV or the big screen. ABC is backing a "reality-based" TV show about an online magazine starring real journalists. And Jason McCabe Calcanis, editor in chief of the Silicon Alley Reporter, will play a dot-com CEO in an upcoming Artisan film, which he helped script-doctor.

There are piles of dot-com projects in the works, but the Net -- despite the forgettable Sandra Bullock flick of the same name -- is still waiting for its breakout blockbuster or hit series.

"In the last couple of years there have been several pilots developed or shot that deal with Internet start-ups," says Robert Fried, a former Hollywood executive and Academy Award winning producer turned dot-com CEO, as the founder of WhatsHotNow.com. "None actually worked," he admits. But stay tuned. "They're zooming in on it. It will work. It may take a few attempts before the correct voice is located, someone who understands the TV medium and someone who understands this kooky environment."

You'd think it would be easy to put together a dot-com drama; the public has been endlessly fascinated by the code-to-riches story of Silicon Valley, the ego-driven business battles of folks like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, Palo Alto's abundance of wealthy bachelors, the instant celebrity of a Mahir. Even factoring in the natural lag time between some captivating event in the "real world" of the Net and the making of a cinematic version of it (with sexier CEOs and airy offices), it's downright odd that we have yet to see a dot-com film or sitcom.

So, where is the "Wall Street" or "Falcon Crest" of Silicon Valley?

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