Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the works

[Dorian Thompson]

I'm sure no film maker actually aims for a metacritic score of 40.

Why are we arguing orginality? There are no original ideas left. There are only seven basic plots for movies; isn't that what someone once said?

[the G-man]

Dorian Thompson wrote:

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Why are we arguing orginality?

Because one of the posters here claimed that this movie was original and implied that no one wanted to see "original" ideas like this.

[Kestrel]

It's more original - even if based on a best-selling novel - than the capstone of a movie series that's been running for several years that's itself based on a fictional universe that's been running for 40+ years.

[Dorian Thompson]

True that, Kestrel.

I'm surprised. The movie was pretty quirky and weird, but it was fun. I didn't go in expecting the gravity of Lawrence of Arabia. People enjoy superheroes and giant robots but they can't enjoy this? I just don't get it. It seemed a slam dunk for the summer season. Lincoln leaving Henry behind was like the hole he left in history when he was killed. You have to wonder how reconstruction would have progressed and about the bitterness and segregation in the south that continued for a century for many a reason, not the least of which was Andrew Johnson's ineffectiveness. In the film it was the vampires who survived, though they were temporarily exiled; real life is far more tragic when you consider the history of the region after the war. Henry wanted to make Lincoln immortal so they could continue to work together. How sad that real life Lincoln didn't live 10 or 20 more years. Things might have been very, very different. Or perhaps not. We'll never know.

Maybe Ben Walker isn't "cool" enough for summer audiences. Me, I thought was great in the part. I guess his mother-in-law rubbed off on him.

[the G-man]

Kestrel wrote:

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It's more original - even if based on a best-selling novel - than the capstone of a movie series that's been running for several years that's itself based on a fictional universe that's been running for 40+ years.

Yeah, because it's not like we've had vampire movies for the past ninety years or anything...

And it's not like having historical figures battling vampires is somehow original either.

[Admiral_Young]

I don't think Seth Graham-Smith would claim that either his novel or the movie was "original". There was an interview with him that I saw where he said the basic genesis of the novel came from seeing vampire books set next to biographies in book stores, on a repeated basis. He got the idea to combine the two from that basically. I think he picked Lincoln because he was fascinated by him. He also expressed a hope that people would, due to the film and book, express an interest in the historical Lincoln.

[The Wormhole]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I don't think Seth Graham-Smith would claim that either his novel or the movie was "original". There was an interview with him that I saw where he said the basic genesis of the novel came from seeing vampire books set next to biographies in book stores, on a repeated basis. He got the idea to combine the two from that basically. I think he picked Lincoln because he was fascinated by him. He also expressed a hope that people would, due to the film and book, express an interest in the historical Lincoln.

To be exact, he kept seeing books about Abraham Lincoln in display next to the Twilight books. This being 2009, Lincoln's bicentennial and Twilight was really starting to build its popularity thanks to the movies, thus explaining why there were so many books on both subjects at the stores.

This got him thinking about merging Lincoln with vampires somehow. He thought about making Lincoln a vampire, but realized this didn't make sense and so made him a vampire hunter instead.

[Mr. Adventure]

If not original, I'd say the treatment was at least unusual. You don't see many supernatural films set in that timeframe without being set in Europe or the Old West. Throw in Abraham Lincoln and at the very least it isn't something you see all the time.

[Admiral_Young]

@TheWormhole...yeah it was Lincoln biographies, my mistake! Unusual would be a good descriptive word for it. Maybe even unique as the material was presented in a unique way this time. I really can't wait to see this movie. Looks like I'm gonna have to wait until next weekend. None of my friends are interested in it. LOL.

[Gryffindorian]

I wanted to see this movie over the weekend, but to my surprise and disappointment, it had limited showtimes and locations in my area. I may either see it next week or just wait for the DVD.

Meanwhile ...

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter may not have been critically well received, taking in a less than impressive $16.3 million at the box office during its opening weekend, but its co-producer Tim Burton and writer Seth Grahame-Smith are already planning a series of sequels. Grahame-Smith is slated to write and publish at least five more books within the next five years, a project which he describes as the “American Presidents: Dark Anthology” series that began with his novel-turned-motion picture, Lincoln. Studio executives announced Monday that they have reached a tentative deal with Grahame-Smith to film the yet-to-be-penned anthology books, and Burton also agreed to co-produce at least two more films with the author.

“Working with Seth on this [project] was a great collaborative experience, and I can’t wait to do it again,” said Burton during a recent interview with Access Hollywood.

The five historical fiction novels will again feature former U.S. presidents (and one incumbent) with the following working titles.

FDR: Werewolf Slayer– The wheelchair-bound and only four-term Commander-in-Chief who led the country from the Depression and through the last days of World War II will be packing silver bullets. And he’s out to get the Nazis and their lycanthropic allies! “The only thing we have to fear is not werewolves, but fear itself!”

JFK: Alien Terminator– The 1960s was a remarkable decade, and little was known to the American people that aliens indeed walked among us! And Schwarzenegger was not the first man in history to carry the title of “Terminator.” The charismatic president declares, “Ask not what aliens can do to you, but what you can do to aliens!”

Ronald Reagan: Ghostbuster– During the Cold War era of the 1980s, the U.S.S.R. employed nefarious ghosts to spy on the White House and the Pentagon to gather intelligence and scare the living daylights out of Americans. Says Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, I will bring down these spooks!”

Bill Clinton: Zombie Assassin– This Democratic president’s two terms in the White House were plagued with evil, flesh-eating reanimated dead people. Clinton declares, “I did not have relations with that zombie, Ms. Lewinsky …”

Barack Obama: Robot Destroyer – Unemployment, health care, Social Security: these are but a few issues that the Chief Executive must deal with during his administration. Yet terrorism has a new face as a group of militants build an army of robots to attack Washington, DC. Can President Obama overcome this cybernetic menace? “Yes I can!”

[Dorian Thompson]

The Onion?

If they'd penned a little satire about an upcoming Theodore Roosevelt movie and him being a hunter of supernatural things, people would probably have believed it. Roosevelt actually went hunting for 6 weeks after the birth of four of his five children (his wife Edith must have loved that ) and he was a noted big game hunter after his presidency. Then, of course there was his 2 year sojourn into the Badlands a few months after the birth of his first child, Alice, which was followed by the death of his first wife, Alice Lee, and his mother, Mittie two days later, 11 hours apart from one another. Talk about your double whammy--and fertile material for a monster movie. The sparsely populated frontier North Dakota Badlands of the mid 1880s? Teddy chasing criminals.....and perhaps something else. It actually writes itself more than Lincoln hunting the undead, and I really enjoyed the movie.

At the risk of sounding girly, Ben Walker is puppy dog gawky, brawny and adorable. What a sweetie pie. And he wields an axe. Hell, if Liam Neeson floats your boat, Ben Walker's the same thing only 25 years younger.

[The Wormhole]

Gryffindorian wrote:

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I wanted to see this movie over the weekend, but to my surprise and disappointment, it had limited showtimes and locations in my area. I may either see it next week or just wait for the DVD.

Meanwhile ...

Out of curiosity, what is your source on this? I did a Google search on all those titles, and this thread was the top result in most cases. Likewise, a search for Seth Grahame-Smith didn't reveal anything either.

Although there is a surprisingly large amount of websites connecting FDR to werewolves.

[Kestrel]

^ Twas a joke.

Though I do like Dorian's idea about Teddy Roosevelt the hunter.

[Dorian Thompson]

It's all true about Teddy's life. I'm not embellishing. With his first wife passing away like that when his baby daughter was 2 days old, and him leaving her with his older sister and leaving the east to go into the frontier....my imagination is in overdrive. I don't know if they could find an actor to mimic that highbrow, upper New York Knickerbocker type accent that the upper classes all had. If you listen to a recording of Teddy's voice on youtube (he made a recorded speech in 1912), his high pitched voice will surprise you. It's not "rugged" and macho by today's standards at all. Also, Teddy was pretty short, only about 5 feet 8 at the most. Still, here he was--this hoidy toidy New Yorker with his thousand dollar cowboy outfit he had specially tailored, going out there in the West with the local cattlemen laughing their asses off at him. 2 years later, after he managed to bring in some local criminals that were on the run for robbery, Teddy won every one of them over. They all respected him even though they thought he sounded hoidy toidy.

Lincoln with his height, his eloquence and his well documented extraordinary physical strength as a young man was the easier choice for incorporating into a story such as this, no doubt. Teddy Roosevelt was so asthmatic and skinny as a child that they feared he'd never be healthy.

[Skywalker]

Joke or not, a JFK vs. aliens story could be all kinds of awesome.