Spielberg's Lincoln to Finally Start Filming
May 12, 2008

The long-rumored and long-delayed Abraham Lincoln biopic to be helmed by Steven Spielberg will finally go before the cameras in early 2009, according to a story published in today's Screen Daily. This conclusively proves that the rumored The Trials of Chicago 7 has been completely put on the back burner, as Spielberg won't have time to shoot that in 2008. That project was going to be Spielberg's next, but was delayed after it needed rewrites and the writers were striking.

This year, the Oscar winner will shoot the first of three CG motion capture movies based on the graphic novel series Tintin. Interestingly, Spielberg tells Germany's Focus Magazine today that the film won't possibly be delayed by the SAG strike because it uses mo-cap. Are the actors in mo-cap movies not under Guild restrictions? Did someone tell the cast of Beowulf? Tintin will shoot early fall and, while it's in post, Spielberg will start on Lincoln, leaving both for a late 2009 release. Spielberg tells Screen Daily that he wants Lincoln to "open in the same year as Lincoln's 200th anniversary which comes round then."

Spielberg's next film will, of course, be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which opens in theaters on May 22nd. It's the masterful director's first film since Munich in 2005, which followed War of the Worlds, The Terminal, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, and Artificial Intelligence: AI this decade. Liam Neeson, who starred in Spielberg's Best Picture-winning Schindler's List, has long been rumored to play Lincoln, but this project has been in development so long, it's unclear if Liam will still take the lead role.