After spending so much time in pre-production that original star Liam Neeson grew too old for the role and was replaced by Daniel Day-Lewis, Steven Spielberg’s long-planned Abraham Lincoln biopic is finally going ahead, with an autumn 2011 shoot announced and plans for release at the end of 2012.
Spielberg has also started filling up his cast list (up until now there was just Day-Lewis as Lincoln and Sally Field as his wife), with Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill and Joseph Cross all in negotiations to join the film. Also in negotiations are David Costabile, Byron Jennings, Dakin Matthews, Boris McGiver, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, and David Warshofsky.
Based on the best-selling book, Team of Rivals, by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the screenplay has been written by the Pulitzer Prize winner, Tony Award winner, and Academy Award nominated writer Tony Kushner. It will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg.
The film 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.
Tommy Lee Jones will play Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican leader and powerful congressman from Pennsylvania in the US House of Representatives. Stevens was a staunch supporter of abolishing slavery and was critical to writing the legislation that funded the American Civil War.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt will take on the role of Robert Todd Lincoln, eldest son of President Lincoln and the only one to live past his teenage years.
There’s no news on who anyone else will play though, but I’m sure they’ll all get some very nice 19th Century frocks.