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Excluding Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane English may have been the happiest woman in Hollywood when the movie "Sex and the City" toppled the new "Indiana Jones" sequel at the box office earlier this month. Then again, this writer-director-producer wasn't exactly surprised by the success of "SATC." English has spent the last 13 years telling movie execs that female-ensemble movies make money, and why it was time to remake "The Women," the ultimate femme fest film.

"I had a whole list of them," English says of "Nine to Five," "Steel Magnolias" and "The First Wives Club." But for 13 years, the execs kept telling her why each of those was a fluke. "It was shocking."

Finally, English got the greenlight when she slashed her budget to $15 million, which just happened to be the cost of another risky but ultimately successful venture, the gay-themed "Brokeback Mountain."

"And that was two guys in the same clothes on a hill with sheep!" English notes.

It helped that the state of Massachusetts gave her a good tax break, making it possible to sub Boston for many Gotham locales. Aficionados of the original George Cukor-helmed pic will be delighted to hear that in English's remake, Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith and many other actresses go at each other without a guy in sight.

It wasn't an easy feat, considering that the 1939 movie filmed entirely on the MGM lot while English's feature went on location. For instance, "We had production assistants controlling the pedestrians on Fifth Avenue, and then a bicycle messenger would fly by," she recalls.

Movies are tough, remakes can be even tougher. "Cukor was not really happy with the film he directed," English reveals, "which is what made it safe for me to do the remake. The Hays Code made him take out a lot of the stuff in the play."

Some of the bite is back in English's film, but at least one 1939 taboo is still too hot to handle in 2008. "The scene where (the character Edith Potter) is smoking and an ash falls on the baby's head and she flicks it off. It's such a wicked, funny moment," English says of Luce's play. "But no, you couldn't do that today either."