United Hollywood passes along the news that, mere hours after making a side deal with the WGA that will allow them to legally employ writers, United Artists has made a tentative deal with Paul Haggis to adapt a children’s fantasy book series called Ranger’s Apprentice. United Artists was the first studio to make such a deal (although Lionsgate and the Weinsteins reportedly have similar pacts in the works), so I guess this makes Paul Haggis the first screenwriter to legally get a job in the midst of the strike.

It’s legal, but is it kosher? An interesting fight has broken out in the comments on the United Hollywood post. On the one hand, this looks like a victory for these WGA side deals: the first studio to put a pact together nabs a name brand screenwriter and puts him to work on a franchise film within a matter of hours. But the very quickness of the deal has some wondering: was Haggis doing more than picketing over the past ten weeks?

As commenter Bartelby puts it:

2 days after UA signs an interim deal with the WGA and Paul Haggis has a job? Is there something fishy going on here? Is it illogical to assume that Haggis was negotiating with UA during a strike for a job?

Ashley Gable notes that Haggis has been extremely supportive of the strike. “I mean “supportive” like Paul has picketed every single fucking day — for EIGHT HOURS A DAY for the first few weeks of the strike,” s/he writes. “There is no way Paul Haggis would undermine the strike and negotiate with UA until after the interim deal was signed. UA execs probably very intelligently sprinted over to Paul’s house as the ink on the WGA deal dried and slept on his doorstep so they could make a deal with him first thing. I would have.”

The Globe and Mail story that sparked the UH post offers some backstory on the project, but no definitive answer as to whether or not Haggis has actually been working or negotiating to work since the strike began in early November. But it is clear that this project did not exactly come together in the last two days. Haggis  specifies that he brought the project to United Artists after reading the book over the summer, and Tom Cruise’s studio then set out to secure the rights.

So it’s very possible that this was all set to go before the strike, and Haggis was just waiting for UA to hook up with WGA so he could actually pick his proverbial pencil up and go back to work. But as Bartleby puts it in response to other commenters who bristle at his suggestion that Haggis has done anything untoward, “Its possible I’m too cynical, just as it is possible you’re both too naive.” Anything’s possible.

(PS––To answer the inevitable question before it’s asked: no, I have no interest in seeing Paul Haggis in a strike beard.)