Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning writer-director of Crash and co-writer of Casino Royale, has been hired by Sony to work on the script for the next James Bond film, temporarily titled James Bond 22, which is slated for release on Nov. 7, 2008.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Haggis has been brought on to rework the James Bond 22 screenplay by regular Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day). His rewrite of Purvis and Wade's Casino Royale script helped to revitalize the aging franchise and give it the edgier credibility it needed to hook a new generation of fans and score the franchise's biggest box office - $588 million worldwide.

Director Roger Michell (Venus) and screenwriter Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven) were briefly attached to the James Bond 22 project last year, and Haggis had turned down the offer to direct it. The newspaper is hinting that four directors are in the final running for the film: Tony Scott (Deja Vu, Spy Game), Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Stranger Than Fiction) and Alex Proyas (I, Robot, Dark City).

The movie is scheduled to be released on Nov. 7, 2008.