Paul Haggis To Receive WGAE’s Ian McClellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement at 2015 Writers Guild Awards

NEW YORK, NY (December 15, 2014) – The Writers Guild of America, East today announced that Paul Haggis will be honored with the Ian McClellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement at the 67th annual Writers Guild Awards at the Edison Ballroom in New York City on February 14, 2014.

A member of the Writers Guild since 1981, Haggis is renowned for crafting thought-provoking and nail-biting feature films and television programs. His remarkable list of credits include the critically-acclaimed James Bond films CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE, genre-defining crime drama WALKER, TEXAS RANGER and one of the most hailed television shows of all time, THIRTYSOMETHING, which earned Haggis his first Writers Guild Award nomination (Episodic Drama) and Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series” and “Outstanding Drama Series.”

Most notably, Haggis holds the distinct honor of being the only person in Oscar history to have written back-to-back Best Picture winners for 2005’s MILLION DOLLAR BABY and 2006’s CRASH. Haggis’ streak nearly continued into 2007 when LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA earned Academy Award nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Picture.

“In a career stretching from episodic television to major feature films – and at a time when more than ever a national dialogue is needed on such difficult topics as race and war — Paul Haggis has provoked audiences into facing the reality of a contemporary America in which conflict is a fact of life and the search for resolution never-ending,” said Michael Winship, President of the Writers Guild of America, East. “We honor his honesty, intelligence and creativity with this year’s Ian McClellan Hunter Award.”

Edward Zwick (THIRTYSOMETHING, ONCE AND AGAIN, DEFIANCE) will present Haggis with the Hunter Award. The award was established in 1992 to honor a Writers Guild member for his or her body of work as a writer in motion pictures or television. Previous recipients include David Simon, David Koepp, Claire Labine, Frank Gilroy, Alan Zweibel, Andrew Bergman, Marshall Brickman, John Sayles, Jules Feiffer, Nora Ephron and Walter Bernstein.

Larry Wilmore (THE NIGHTLY SHOW WITH LARRY WILMORE, BLACK-ISH) will serve as host of the Writers Guild Awards New York Ceremony, which is sponsored in part by Final Draft, Bananagrams and the New York Observer.

The Writers Guild Awards honor outstanding writing in film, television, new media, videogames, news, radio, promotional, and graphic animation categories. The awards will be presented at simultaneous ceremonies on Saturday, February 14, 2015, in Los Angeles at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza and in New York City at the Edison Ballroom. For more information about the 2015 Writers Guild Awards submission process, guidelines, and official entry forms, please visit www.wga.org or www.wgaeast.org.

For media inquiries about the 2015 Writers Guild Awards New York show, please contact Jason Gordon in the WGAE Communications Department at (212) 767-7809 or email: jgordon@wgaeast.org.

For media inquiries about the 2015 Writers Guild Awards Los Angeles show, please contact Gregg Mitchell in the WGAW Communications Department at: (323) 782-4651 or email: gmitchell@wga.org.

The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) are labor unions representing writers in motion pictures, television, cable, digital media, and broadcast news. The Guilds negotiate and administer contracts that protect the creative and economic rights of their members; conduct programs, seminars, and events on issues of interest to writers; and present writers’ views to various bodies of government. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, East, visit www.wgaeast.org. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, West, visit www.wga.org.

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