Finally,
Steven Spielberg is manning up and will exercise that demon - that little red devil on his shoulder that taunted him through the night - that whispered to him that he could never do the life of the Great Abe justice on celluloid. He so very nearly went back to his comfort zone didn't he with that Transformer-clone
Robopocalypse which as
recently as last month was announced as next movie after
The War Horse- but thankfully something changed - and a
Dreamworks press release has just gone out announcing that Spielberg has committed to making
Lincoln next, surprisingly with
Daniel Day-Lewis. Shooting begins in a year's time for a release late 2012. Poor
Liam Neeson, eh? From an entirely selfish point of view though, this is fantastic news. Day-Lewis is a God among mere mortals, at least a notch above Neeson and I am thankful for every film he agrees to make. In many ways, after Bill the Butcher (
Gangs of New York) and Daniel Plainview (
There Will Be Blood), Day-Lewis has been building towards this. Based on
Tony Kushner's (Munich) adaptation of the best-selling book "Team of Rivals" by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
Doris Kearns Goodwin the plot will focus on the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War.
Spielberg has already begun
scouting locations and this will be the first ever Spielberg/Day-Lewis collaboration. Again though, poor Liam Neeson. He
admitted defeat in the summer, chucking years and years worth of preparation down the drain when Spielberg was so obviously never going to make the movie with him... only to see four months later that Spielberg has gone for the guy he starred opposite with in
Gangs of New York.
BUT there's still something of a light at the end of the tunnel for Neeson. Yes, it wouldn't quite be the same - but if he gives director
Timbur Bekmambetov a call over the weekend and declares interest in
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - he at least would be able to give us a bad-ass/bloody-thirsty/popcorn friendly Lincoln that meant his long background research hasn't gone completely to waste. For Day-Lewis, the intense and long transformation will no doubt begin soon. Next year, you will probably have to address him as President Lincoln, nothing less.