Paul Haggis wrote the original screenplay. By the time the movie was greenlighted, the Writer's Guild Strike hit and Haggis refused to do any further writing on the movie during the strike. Production was passed to Canadian producer Damien Lewis who rewrote the script. Haggis read the script and took his name off it - taking credit instead as "Bill Freed", his WGA pseudonym, and insisted Damien Lee take credit for his work.