It is being reported that director Steven Spielberg has chosen to film his upcoming biography about Abraham Lincoln in Virginia. The film is set to star two-time Academy Award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis as the titular president. Sally Field will be playing the role of Mary Todd Lincoln.
The screenplay by Tony Kushner (Munich), based off of the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, examines Lincoln’s presidency and the Civil War.
Principal filming on the project is scheduled to begin this fall in Petersburg and Richmond, which was the former capital of the Confederacy. Spielberg, who has been scouting locations in these two cities for more than a year, selected these cities because of the abundance of historical properties that still exist from that period.
This is not the first time Spielberg has filmed in Virginia. He previously filmed parts of Minority Report and War of the Worlds there. Other notable period pieces that have filmed in Virginia include HBO’s John Adams and the Civil War film Cold Mountain.
Being a resident of Richmond, Virginia myself, this is quite exciting. Spielberg is already known for being a master filmmaker who has won multiple Academy Awards, but when you combine him with an actor of Day-Lewis’s caliber, the results could be extraordinary.
The film is scheduled to be released in 2012.
(Source: Yahoo News)