It’s been nearly five years years now since Steven Spielberg first signalled his intention to make a biopic about Araham Lincoln, with Liam Neeson in the lead role. However he’s yet to make the movie, with his time instead taken up on the likes of Tintin and setting up Dreamworks as an independent studio again. Even now he’s not ready to start shooting, with the new Dreamworks backers apparently wanting him to make something more definitely commercial for them before moving onto the famous president.
Now it looks like the delays have caused Liam Neeson to back out of the movie. Digital Spy reports that Neeson told GMTV that “I’m not actually playing Lincoln now. I was attached to it for a while, but it’s now I’m past my sell-by date.” He may have a point, as Lincoln was assasinated at the age of 56, while Neeson is now 58, so it might be getting tough for him to pull of the president in his earlier years.
There’s no news on a replacement, and indeed there’s been little news about Lincoln at all from Spielberg’s camp for quite a while. The bearded director is currently gearing up for War Horse, based on the Michael Morpurgo book, which starts filming in the UK this month, and with the motion captured Tintin currently in post-production for release late next year, it’s unlikely he’ll get to Lincoln before 2012 anyway.