Paul Haggis got Mila Kunis, Olivia Wilde, James Franco, and Liam Neeson for his next big ensemble movie

Paul Haggis, who enjoyed his greatest success as a writer-director with the Oscar-winning Crash, is making another one of those enormous-cast, multiple-overlapping-storyline jobbies with Third Person, a film that tracks various characters across Paris, New York, and Rome. One easy way to tell it apart from Crash: It’s about the universal experience of love instead of racism, because there’s something about success, growing older, and getting away from Scientology that gets a man thinking about the sweeter things in life. Another way: Its cast, with so far Mila Kunis, Olivia Wilde, James Franco, Casey Affleck, and Liam Neeson all in negotiations to pair off as different couples in various stages of their romantic relationships. Right now only some of those people are officially confirmed, with Deadline reporting that producers are still in negotiation with Neeson to consider exploring an experience more universal than going overseas to kick the crap out of people or fighting off wolves.