When Catherine Hardwicke was first tapped to helm the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's "Saga" starter "Twilight," the film was pegged as an indie romance with a small-to-mid-sized budget and zero expectation of the cultural phenom (read: loot machine) the series would eventually become.

But the film -- yes, sparkly vampires and all -- wound up raking in almost $400 million, more than ten times the production budget, and kicked off a five-movie franchise equipped with one of the most dedicated fanbases the entertainment world has ever known.

So, you might think that the door would be held wide open for her when studios start combing the director pool for just about anything, but that's just not the case. And, as humorously depicted in this "Funny or Die" sketch featuring Hardwicke and four other accomplished female directors -- including Shira Piven ("Welcome to Me"), Nisha Ganatra ("Transparent"), Nicole Holofcenter ("Enough Said") and Anne Fletcher ("Hot Pursuit") -- being interviewed for the fictional action sequel "Space Cop 4," Hollywood sexism might have a little something to do with that fact.

In the short film, the five ladies are quizzed on their ability to handle the would-be blockbuster hopeful, but instead of knackering the vision or interest of the parties, the benchmark is set at whether they can "make it go boom" or not.

"Um. Wut?" is a rough paraphrase of their collective reaction to the offensive line of inquiry, but the real kick in the pants come when one of the faux execs says, "If you have to go to your kids, that's fine."

Cue all the facepalms. Especially since this is actually no laughing matter.

Hardwicke starred in this summer's tell-all documentary "Celluloid Ceilings" and revealed a boatload of terrible truths about the nature of sexism in Hollywood, specifically as experienced by female directors.

As she, who was the only female director to helm an installment of the "Twilight Saga" before Chris Weitz, David Slade and Bill Condon came into the picture, then explained, "After 'Twilight,' people were excited about 'Divergent,' people were excited about 'The Hunger Games' — in fact, people were even inspired to write those books, probably, with the success of 'Twilight.' It's shown that there’s a desire; there's an audience. If you see a brave, badass girl out there, people will go see the movie. It's disappointing that even though a female director directed the first 'Twilight' — did the whole cast, set the whole look — that none of the other 'Twilights,' or 'The Hunger Games,' or 'Divergent' … all books written by a woman and starring a woman … not one of them has been directed by a woman."