Now here’s another weird one. While everyone was distracted by chatter as to who was to take over from director Gary Ross on the Hunger Games franchise (it looks to be I Am Legend’s Francis Lawrence), Charlie Kauffman has been hired to write an adaptation of the first book in Patrick Ness’s bestselling Chaos Walking trilogy. Lions Gate, the studio behind The Hunger Games, hopes that the series will be itsnext big smash.

Kaufman has done some touching-up work on mainstream pictures such as Kung Fu Panda 2, but his signature work involves depressive, post-modern puzzles such as Being John Malkovich and Synecdoche, New York. Ness’s young-adult series focuses on a world where there are no women and all creatures can understand one another’s thoughts. Well, it sounds strange enough for our Charlie.