Ladies and gentlemen of the not-too-distant future, start your engines! And then immediately turn them off, because if you're headed to the movies, you don't need to drive anywhere.

A recently published Ford patent details the automaker's plans to offer drop-down projection screens that cover car windshields, transforming automobiles into cinemas.

The most intriguing part of the idea, of course, is that you actually could drive somewhere and watch a movie at the same time, thanks to Ford's self-driving car technology.

The patent describes two different modes for the movie theater. When the car is in self-driving mode, the screen would fully cover the windshield, providing a cinematic experience. But switch to manual drive mode, and the screen would disappear, leaving a more conventional in-dash display to take over movie playback.

There's also a provision for an on-board computer to monitor the autonomous driving sensors and automatically retract the movie screen if it senses the car needs to switch to manual mode--perhaps if a collision is imminent.

It's a scary thought, to be sure. Imagine watching a James Bond flick only to be interrupted by your own impending car crash.

In what may be a sign of things to come if self-driving cars ever pull away from the curb, the patent's authors use the word "passenger" to describe all of the vehicle's occupants. Only when the screen retracts does one of the passengers become a "driver."

The consensus is that it's only a matter of time before self-driving cars hit the market, especially since the main roadblocks are regulatory, not technological. The same goes for the windshield movie screen: patents don't always develop into products, but if Ford ever tries to market it, we imagine the regulatory hurdles would be intense.