User:Wildroot/Lincoln

Lincoln is a planned biographical film about Abraham Lincoln, to be directed by Steven Spielberg and to star Daniel Day-Lewis. Spielberg intends to film and release it by the end of 2012.

Cast

 * Liam Neeson was cast as Abraham Lincoln in January 2005, without seeing a script for the next four years. Neeson was familiar with the American Civil War after researching it for Seraphim Falls (2007). To further prepare, Neeson read twenty-two books about Lincoln, and travelled to Washington, D.C., where he was given access to Lincoln's personal letters, his wallet and the Bible he was inaugurated on (which Neeson chose to pray with). He also visited Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated.


 * Sally Field was cast as Mary Todd Lincoln in September 2007. Marcia Gay Harden was also reportedly considered for the role.

Development
While consulting on a Steven Spielberg project in 1999, Kearns-Goodwin Steven Spielberg directed a short documentary, entitled The Unfinished Journey, for the 1999 New Year's Eve celebrations. It was a montage about the 20th century and screened near the Lincoln Memorial. Doris Kearns Goodwin consulted on the project. During a meeting, she told Spielberg she was planning to write Team of Rivals, and Spielberg immediately told her he wanted the film rights. DreamWorks finalized the deal in 2001, and by the end of the year, John Logan signed on to write the script. His draft focused on Lincoln's friendship with Frederick Douglass. Playwright Paul Webb was hired to rewrite and filming was set to begin in January 2006, but Spielberg delayed it out of dissatisfaction with the script. Neeson said Webb's draft covered the entirety of Lincoln's term as President.

Tony Kushner replaced Webb. Kushner considered Lincoln "the greatest democratic leader in the world" and found the writing assignment daunting because "I have no idea [what made him great]; I don't understand what he did anymore than I understand how William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet or Mozart wrote Così fan tutte." He delivered his first draft late and felt the enormous amount written about Lincoln did not help either. Kushner said Lincoln's abolitionist ideals made him appealing to a Jewish writer, and although he felt Lincoln was Christian, he noted the president rarely quoted the New Testament and that his "thinking and his ethical deliberation seem very talmudic". He denied any interest in portraying Lincoln as homosexual – as had been speculated due to Kushner's sexuality – because "there's [not] enough evidence one way or the other to make a definitive statement about Lincoln's sexuality". By late 2008, Kushner joked he was on "my 967,000th book about Abraham Lincoln". Kushner's initial 500-page draft focused on four months in the life of Lincoln, and by February 2009 he had rewritten it to focus on two months in Lincoln's life when he was preoccupied with adopting the Thirteenth amendment.

While promoting Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in May 2008, Spielberg announced his intention to start filming in early 2009, for release in November, ten months after the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. In January 2009, Taunton and Dighton, Massachusetts were being scouted as potential locations. Spielberg arranged a $50 million budget for the film, to please Paramount Pictures CEO Brad Grey, who had previously delayed the project over concerns it was too similar to Spielberg's unsuccessful Amistad (1997). Spielberg had wanted Touchstone Pictures–which agreed to distribute all his films from 2010–to distribute the film, but he was unable to afford paying off Paramount, which DreamWorks had developed the film with. Despite Robert Redford's Lincoln-themed 2010 film, The Conspirator, Spielberg denied reports that he was canceling Lincoln in September 2009. Kushner will continue rewriting the script while Spielberg directs Harvey.


 * http://www.deadline.com/2010/11/daniel-day-lewis-to-star-in-lincoln-for-director-steven-spielberg-and-dreamworks/