Steven Spielberg’s biopic of Abraham Lincoln seems to have been in the works for years now, with no official start date for filming ever seeming to get closer. Well it now looks like he’s got a bit of competition from Robert Redford, as according to the RiskyBizBlog, the Sundance founder is also planning a movie featuring the great President.
However unlike the three biopics of John DeLorean that are currently in the works in Hollywood, these two movies from a couple of Hollywood’s biggest guns may well be able to co-exist happily. While Spielberg’s movie will be a proper biopic of the American Civil War leader, Redford’s film, titled The Conspirator, will focus on Mary Surratt, an alleged accomplice in the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln.
Although the details of Surratt’s involvement in Lincoln’s death are somewhat debated, her son was definitely involved in an earlier attempt to kidnap the president. After Lincoln’s death, Surratt was convicted of conspiring with the assassins, who stopped off at her tavern and got firearms there after the infamous murder. She’s also said by some to have been involved with the planning of the assassination, while others contend that she was railroaded into court due to a public desire for convictions in connection with the killing (especially after the man who fired the fatal shot, John Wilkes Booth, was killed before he could be apprehended). Her trial may also have been an attempt to try and smoke out her son, who was believed to be more intimately involved what the conspiracy.
There’s no news yet on who might play Surratt, although James McAvoy is apparently high in the running for a major male role in the film.
We’d quite like to see both Redford and Spielberg’s movies. Steven’s movie is currently scheduled for release in 2011, although we’ll believe it when we see it, while there’s no news on when we might see Redford’s movie.