Paul Haggis will be honored with the Ian McClellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement at the 67th annual Writers Guild Awards, the Writers Guild of America, East announced on Monday.
Director Edward Zwick will present Haggis with the award during the ceremony at the Edison Ballroom in New York City on Feb.14.
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.
Haggis is a two-time Oscar winner who began writing for television in 1979 before writing and directing his first feature, “Red Hot,” in 1993, which is the same year he co-created “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Haggis, perhaps best known for writing and directing 2006’s “Crash,” also helped reboot the James Bond franchise by writing “Casino Royale,” followed by “Quantum of Solace.”
“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.”