As some people may know, Paul Haggis (Crash) was one of the screenwriters for the last James Bond movie Casino Royale. Like many big blockbusters, the movie was eventually subject to rewrites by a number of other contributors including Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Johnny English), but I’ve always been curious about how much of the movie was actually a direct result of Paul Haggis. I just find it interesting that one of the most unanimously popular movies from the past few years was also written by a guy that everyone seemingly loves to hate.

As it turns out, Haggis also wrote Quantum of Solace with Purvis and Wade, and while the early reviews for the movie are quite promising, director Marc Forster recently revealed one pretty ridiculous plot element that almost snuck into the movie, courtesy of Mr. Walker Texas Ranger:

“Haggis had an idea they weren’t fond of, and I didn’t know if it would work or not… The idea was that Vesper in the last movie, maybe she had a kid, and there would be an orphan out there. It wasn’t anything to insult the franchise. But they felt it wasn’t particularly Bond — him looking for the kid. I think Paul thought he just leaves the kid, he doesn’t deal with it. But [the producers] thought that would be really nasty, too, because Bond was an orphan himself. If he would find a kid, would he just leave it? They were so vehemently against it. That was the only time I saw, really, ‘No, we can’t do that.’ They said, ‘Once he finds the kid, Bond can’t just leave the kid. It’s not right.'”

Wow. Yeah, James Bond with a kid is probably the worst idea ever. Heck, even in the animated series James Bond Jr., they had the sense to make the kid his nephew rather than his son! Didn’t Haggis see Superman Returns? At any rate, I guess we should be thankful that Haggis had a few co-writers and producers to overrule him. What do you think, is this just further proof that Paul Haggis is a hack?