It’s been over two years since director Timur Bekmambetov‘s last feature, the summer blockbuster Wanted. His upcoming project, an adaptation for Seth Grahame-Smith‘s novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, has been part of a fierce bidding war these past few days. Deadline is reporting we have a winner that emerged a few hours ago.
20th Century Fox has acquired the project and will produce for $69 million. Director Timur Bekmambetov will team with producer Tim Burton for the “3D re-imagining of Lincoln’s life that depicts the 16th president as an axe-throwing, highly accomplished killer of vampires, an obsession of his since those bloodsuckers supposedly took the life of his mother. Taking revenge, Lincoln wreaks havoc on the vampires and their slave-owning protectors.”
It also sounds like Fox really wanted the project:
When the filmmakers came onto the lot, the studio had bloody axes and bloody footprints strewn about, and arranged for a bugle player in a Confederate uniform playing “Taps” to accompany them to the meeting with studio executives.
Fancy.
The script has already been finished by Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote the book and production is set for March 2011. It will be nice to see Burton take the backseat and strictly produce. I didn’t love Wanted, but this project sounds just insane enough to work. Time to check out that novel, as well as his Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is also being developed into a film w/ David O. Russell and Natalie Portman attached.
Has anyone read the novel? Is this producer/director duo a good fit?