Okay, maybe Hollywood isn’t out of ideas. Charlie Kaufman has written some of the most creative screenplays of the last decade–Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York. And Adaptation was awesome enough that it almost made me forget how much Nicolas Cage annoys me. So, with a resumé like that, it makes perfect sense that Kaufman’s next project would be Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom of Doom, right? No, wait. That makes no sense at all. I feel like I’m trapped in the middle of a Charlie Kaufman script:

Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar-winning writer behind “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and films such as “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich,” has headed off into an unexpected direction: animation. The scribe is coming off of less than two weeks worth of work on DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom,” the sequel to the fun 2008 movie that had the voice talent of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, and Dustin Hoffman.”

Notice that “less than two weeks.” Essentially, Kaufman was polishing up the work of other writers. Still, we can hope that Kaufman’s contribution had a big impact on the project. With any luck, Kung Fu Panda 2 is now a highly non-linear narrative about a clinically depressed screenwriter who tries and fails to come to grips with the Kung Fu Panda material, only to see the movie completed by Donald, his mercenary sleazebag twin brother. Fun for the whole family!