Nic Cage has played a lot of different characters in his career, but I’ve never really thought of him as the caveman type. Isn’t that why Brendan Fraser is allowed to keep working? You know, just so we have him in case we need a Cro-Magnon man? But Variety says Cage is teaming up with Ryan Reynolds to provide the voices for a DreamWorks animated caveman comedy called The Croods and the Encino Man is nowhere in sight.

The movie has Cage voicing Crug, a cave-family man leading his family on a journey through an unfamiliar world after an earthquake destroys their home. So I guess it’s kind of like a prehistoric 2012? Probably with fewer airplanes. Reynolds is a charming nomad character who woos Crug’s elder daughter with his shockingly modern-minded ways. That’s code for even cavemen know gay people should be allowed to get married, right?

It’s being co-directed by the guy who made Space Chimps (bad) and the guy who created Lilo & Stich (mostly bad), but it’s from DreamWorks, the company that brought you Kung Fu Panda (excellent). Somewhere in that mix there’s bound to be someone who knows how to draw a proper caveman. But I’d feel better about this thing if the plot sounded more Flintstones and less Ice Age meets 2012. Remember that old Flintstones gag with the talking garbage disposal? It’s time someone brought that back.