Chabon's Barton Fink experience

Michael Chabon goes to China, discovers screenwriters have a hard time there too. (Paper Cuts)

M. and F. floated the Grandmaster idea, and they also the floated the whole “Grandmaster sends Gwen off to YET ANOTHER G.D. TEMPLE to be trained.” I wanted to cry. I wanted to take out my tai chi sword and chop those ideas into little slices in front of their eyes, but of course I just sat there and tried to look pleasantly intransigent in what I hoped was good Chinese fashion.

O.K., so anyway, I was like, dudes, you have your prophecy-Messiah-Neo is the One-Paul Muad’dib-Return of the King-Cloud Tiger Messiah plotline that I’ve never liked but somehow to my surprise and totally against my will has somehow crept back into the story. Now you want the Grandmaster and the Other Temple. Why don’t we just slap the English fiance who’s really a demon back in there, too, and I can just go shopping for my kids and you can shoot right off the prior draft?