Paul Haggis writing and directing dark romcom

Paul Haggis

Crash director Paul Haggis is currently working on a new film entitled Third Person , “an ensemble drama about three couples around the globe”.

The Oscar-winner, whose thriller The Next Three Days is due out in the first week of January, has revealed that it’s “a serious story about modern relationships set against scenic locales”.

Those scenic locales apparently consist of New York and Rome, though if he’s going for the romantic angle, we’re assuming Paris will be added in there at some point, too.

But even if the project sounds sort of like a flatlining, run-of-the-mill romcom, Haggis has confirmed that Third Person will be “darker, much, much darker” than things like Valentine's Day .

How so? His aim is to “develop each character as much as possible”. Surely that’s the aim of every serious writer when making a movie?

Either way, a dark romcom definitely sounds interesting, especially from the guy whose hyperbolic Crash featured some massively heightened melodrama.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.