In the computer and gaming industries it is called “vaporware” when a software product is endlessly delayed or canceled entirely. In Hollywood it’s considered just another day. Even in that wasteland of discarded projects though, few get talked up for so long by such important people as Spielberg’s Lincoln, starring Liam Neeson.
However, even if one day Steven Spielberg rolls cameras on an Abraham Lincoln biopic, Devin can still fire up another Movies That Never Were piece, because the other half of the dream equation, Liam Neeson, is no longer attached to the project. The news comes from an interview with GMTV (which I couldn’t dig up on their site) care of Digital Spy.
“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.”
Spielberg is gearing up to roll cameras on Saving Private Equus and once that’s released next year, he literally has something like 3 dozen projects he’s attached to and could start on. Even if Lincoln somehow emerges from that orgy of in-development films as Spielberg’s next project, it’s the opposite of likely that Neeson will be a part of it, if he’s already speaking that definitively.
This is, of course, a toss away quote and much stranger things have happened than an actor reversing his stance on a film, but with all of the other development problems the film has had, I think Neeson’s just telling us what we all already knew.
I guess we’ll always have the Waterston Lincoln.
12 comments
Was never really looking forward to it anyway. Spielberg would've played it fairly safe, with one part of the audience upset that it showed him as anything less than God, while the other side upset that it didn't humanize his faults enough. Good riddance.
This is not really a tragedy. How many biopics of Lincoln do we really need? Unless he was suppose to team up with Mark Twain and Nikolai Tesla to fight Cthulhu and Jack The Ripper, than its more or less redundant.
Who wants to bet now that Lincoln is off the table, Indy 5 talk will once again ramp up.
With Obama as President, Spielberg will not do Lincoln given the subject matter (which reverberates on a couple of levels, obviously). He is far, FAR too sensitive a filmmaker and I'd bet money this is why there's no been no word on it since the election. Not going to happen before 2016.
Michael just made my day, thank you sir.
INTERSTELLAR plz
I was deeply disappointed to read this story until I read Micheal's comment.
Now I want to see movies made by Michael.
Bleh. Spielberg, you've lost it! You lost it a while ago! Right around the time you hired Michael Bay. Now you dump the only really interesting project you've got, that had LIAM &$%@#& NEESON chomping at the bit to play Lincoln. This is just embarrassing. Retire already.
Yeah, Spielberg is on a slow downward spiral. Has been for a while now. Problem is, he has it so fucking easy, with everyone lining up to suck his dick and tell him how awesome he is, what a pleasure it would be to work with him, etc. He's not hungry anymore. He doesn't need to push himself as a filmmaker and take chances, because everything is just handed to him these days. He'll likely team up with Lucas to shit out one more godawful Indy movie – provided Harrison doesn't die before everyone agrees on a script with the appropriate level of rancidity – and then, with any luck, retire altogether.
This is a shame for Neeson. He needs a serious role to get his teeth into. Ever since his wife died he's been cashing paychecks in dumb shit movies just to keep working – Clash of the Titans, The A-Team, fucking After.Life. Whatever Spielberg's weaknesses, Lincoln is the sort of meaty role that would at least shake Neeson out of his grief rut.
How awful must Tony Kushner's screenplay be that Spielberg refuses to film it? What other explanation could there be for his reluctance to push forward with this project? You're telling me he can get financing for WAR HORSE but not a Lincoln biopic? I've always thought Kushner was a tremendously overrated writer at best and in actuality, a pretentious hack with zero talent. MUNICH (also by Kushner) is the worst script Spielberg has ever rolled film on outside of HOOK.
Please let Michaels idea be filmed.
Seriously. I'd pay to see that.
Comments are shown as archived from the original site; new comments are closed.