Paul Haggis

[MacGuffin]

Haggis tackles Clarke's 'Against All Enemies'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Hot off his best picture win for "Crash," Paul Haggis is in final negotiations to direct and produce "Against All Enemies" for Columbia Pictures. It is unclear whether Haggis will tackle the hot-button political drama next or sandwich in another helming project first. Either way, he will initially supervise scribe James Vanderbilt ("The Rundown"), who is penning a second draft of "Enemies." Haggis is currently writing "Death and Dishonor" for Warner Bros. Pictures, which he is attached to direct. Based on Richard A. Clarke's best-selling memoir, "Enemies" chronicles how the Bush administration handled the al-Qaida threat before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

[MacGuffin]

Theron, Jones eye Haggis pic
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Tommy Lee Jones are in discussions to topline Paul Haggis' next feature film, an untitled mystery thriller that is serving as his directorial follow-up to his Academy Award-winning hit "Crash."

Warner Independent Pictures is co-financing and will distribute domestically.

The story follows a veteran father in search of his son, an exemplary soldier who recently returned from Iraq and has mysteriously gone AWOL. The story is based on an investigative article by Mark Boal in Playboy titled "Death and Dishonor," which told the true story about an officer-father who rejected the Army's claim of AWOL status for his son and discovered a murder. Haggis fictionalized the elements and will direct from his original screenplay based on a story he wrote with Boal.

Haggis is producing with Larry Becsey.

Warner Bros. Pictures optioned the article and made a life-rights deal with the father in February 2005. WIP came on board when the project encountered budget speed bumps.

If deals are made, Jones would play the father, while Theron would play a police detective.

A November start date is being eyed. Summit Entertainment intends to co-finance and handle international territories.

[MacGuffin]

Lionsgate sets Haggis for 'Days'
Filmmaker to write, direct 'Pour Elle' remake
Source: Variety

Lionsgate is teaming with filmmaker Paul Haggis on the thriller "The Next Three Days," an adaptation of the French film "Pour elle."

The mini-major said Tuesday that it has acquired remake rights to "Pour elle" from Wild Bunch and Fidelite Films.

Haggis will direct, write and produce "Next Three Days," which centers on an ordinary couple who find themselves in an unthinkable situation and have to make desperate choices that will test the limits of love.

It's Lionsgate's first collaboration with Haggis since "Crash," for which he received Academy Awards for motion picture and original screenplay along with a director nom.

Haggis and Michael Nozik will produce "The Next Three Days" through their production entity Highway 61 Films, along with Marc Missonnier and Olivier Delbosc of Fidelite Films. Principal photography is expected to begin in August.

Project was brought to Highway 61 by its new head of development, Eugenie Grandval.

Haggis' most recent project was "In the Valley of Elah," which he produced, directed and adapted.

[MacGuffin]

Russell Crowe to star in 'Three Days'
Paul Haggis to direct Lionsgate film
Source: Variety

Russell Crowe will star in "The Next Three Days," the adaptation of the 2008 French film "Pour Elle" that reunites Lionsgate with its "Crash" director Paul Haggis.

Crowe will play a teacher whose wife is arrested and convicted of a murder she says she did not commit. He comes up with a desperate plan to free her.

Haggis, who wrote the script, will begin production in late September in Pittsburgh.

Haggis told Daily Variety that the drama needed an actor who can thrive as an Everyman who rises when faced with an extraordinary circumstance, and Crowe was his top choice.

"We've seen him as the gladiator, but he has embodied the Everyman in so many pictures," Haggis said.

Haggis said the film explores deeper themes of faith and belief.

Said Haggis: "The deeper theme here is, would you save the woman you loved if you knew that by doing so, you would turn into a man that woman could no longer love?"

Haggis is producing with Michael Nozik through their Highway 61 Films, along with Marc Missonnier and Olivier Delbosc of Fidelite Films.

Crowe is shooting "Robin Hood," the Ridley Scott-directed drama for Universal and Imagine.

[MacGuffin]

Paul Haggis on Scientology: 'Morally reprehensible'
Source: Los Angeles Times

Everybody has his or her own take on Paul Haggis' dramatic letter, announcing his break with Scientology after 35 years of membership in the church. But what especially fascinated me was how much his letter, full of passion and moral outrage, resembled large portions of his film and TV work, especially his scripts for "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Crash," the latter of which won him an Oscar.

If you missed the news, the Church of Scientology was a public sponsor of Proposition 8, which Haggis describes in his letter as "a hate-filled legislation that succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California."

Haggis had apparently been campaigning for months to get the church's official spokesman, Tommy Davis, to condemn the Prop 8 sponsorship, saying he couldn't in good conscience be a member of an organization in which gay-bashing was tolerated. But to no avail. It's intriguing to see that once Haggis saw the church in a new light, he found himself alienated from some of its others actions. For me, the letter's most astounding revelation is that Haggis calls out the church for its policy of disconnection, which apparently calls for members to cut their ties with people Scientology has deemed as unfriendly to the church.

Haggis acknowledges that his wife was ordered to disconnect from her parents because of something they supposedly did 25 years earlier when they resigned from the church. His wife followed the church's orders, refusing to speak to her parents, who'd introduced her to Scientology in the first place. As for Haggis, he says that he refused to break off contact, explaining, "I've never been good at following orders, especially when I find them morally reprehensible."

It was at that point in his letter that I realized that Haggis was a dead-on spiritual heir to Dalton Trumbo, the best-known screenwriter of his generation and perhaps the most prominent member of the Hollywood 10, who was blacklisted for his membership in the Communist Party. Like Haggis, Trumbo was the high priest of righteous indignation, firing off blistering letters at a rapid pace to friends and enemies alike. (They are collected in "Additional Dialogue: Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 1942-1962," a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Hollywood in the era of the blacklist.) In Trumbo's day, the enemy wasn't Scientology but rabid anti-Communist crusaders as well as weaselly Hollywood careerists who refused to stand up to the worst excesses of the Red Scare.

But see for yourself. Here is Haggis, writing to Davis, in reference to a series of stories in the St. Petersburg Times, that detailed a host of church excesses:

"And when I pictured you assuring me that it is all lies, that this is nothing but an unfounded and vicious attack by a group of disgruntled employees, I am afraid that I saw the same face that looked in the camera and denied the policy of disconnection. I heard the same voice that professed outrage at our support of Proposition 8, who promised to correct it and did nothing. I was left feeling outraged, and frankly, more than a little stupid."

And here is Trumbo, writing to a former movie biz pal, who had turned on Trumbo when the screenwriter was being hounded by right-wing zealots:

"You should not, in your letter to me, assume a whore's virtue at confession by using the word 'affection.' My affection caused me to assert your ability to producers when you were out of favor; yours impelled you to cry out against me in the most fatal hour of my career. Mine persuaded me to spend long hours in discussion of your story problems when you sought to re-establish yourself; yours led you to organizational meetings calculated to deprive me of my rights within the Guild, to destroy my good name and to make it impossible for me to work in my profession. Give me no more such affection. I stagger beneath that already conferred. Give me rather your hatred and let me console myself by the exchange of a weak friend for a strong enemy."

Ah, the lesson here is clear: Beware the wrath of a screenwriter scorned!

[pete]

this and matthew hoh...public resignations via letters are super in.

[modage]

Haha, Paul Haggis directed this: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/02/we_are_the_world_reboot_video.html

[Stefen]

Of course he did. Who else could direct something that's sole aim is to be emotionally manipulative.

EDIT: lol. I just watched the whole thing. HILARIOUS. Who the fuck are those people? Lil Wayne singing = lulz.

[polkablues]

The jewy little Jonas Brother's voice is so bad, it's almost offensive.  More annoying than Wyclef's animal impressions.  And how did the guy from The Fray sneak in there?

[md]

they ain't jews

[pete]

he didn't say jew, he said jewy.

[RegularKarate]

I like how Jamie Foxx was all super serious at the beginning and then he decides to be all Fuck-aroundy with his Ray Charles impersonation (stop milking that one, asshole).  He gives that look afterward like "I'm so funny".

[md]

whew!

[Pubrick]

i know it's pretty old news now but i only just saw the whole thing.

first of all, and most glaringly.. wtf is the reason for this video? does the name give it away, it's the 25th anniversary of the first clusterfuck.. so essentially it's a single re-release with way too much focus on the fact it's a cover. how fortunate it's a neat number of years after the original that it can be titled something as generic as We Are The World 25 (let's celebrate the milestone!.. uh.. and haiti.. wait).

the other thing that strikes me as lamentable apart from the tragedy that sparked the genius mind of some misguided jerk-off, is the free reign given to Wyclef. dude is i guess the resident haitian so he gets to say lotsa weird things over the music and then get the final word on the track. it's too bad cos he's the most embarrassing thing on there and there's lots of other contenders!

it doesn't bode well for even the kitschy time capsule value of something like this when half, easily more than half, of the ppl on it are fucking unrecognizable! we should be able to symbolically take our names off this thing for future generations to know we never approved of having these celebrities represent us.. We Are NOT the World.. We Are Just Available for Opportunistic Publicity Events.

[md]

sooo to recap:

Baby Beiber opens
Michael Jackson lives
Barbara Streisand is confused on how to wear headphones
Wyclef cannot be outdone by autotune
Weezy cannot be outdone by singing
Vince Vaughn's chest hair makes an appearance
LL cool J continues to lick his lips
Jamie Foxx is fooled by Paul Haggis
Rap takes over the world
Michael Jackson rolls in grave

Nipsey hussle loses street cred