Fox is moving quickly on Timur Bekmambetov’s 3-D adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, setting its release for June 22, 2012. The announcement comes less than four weeks after the studio won a fierce bidding war for the project.
Published in March, Seth Grahame-Smith’s bestselling novel is purportedly based on the secret diaries of the ax-wielding 16th president, who waged a clandestine lifelong war against the bloodsuckers after one of them killed his mother. The mashup, which features among its cast Edgar Allan Poe and an undead John Wilkes Booth, imagines a Confederacy supported by vampires, who rely on the slave trade for food.
Bekmambetov (Nightwatch, Wanted) and producer Tim Burton were so taken by the book that they used their own money to option the rights. Grahame-Smith, who earlier wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, penned a new draft of Burton’s long-gestating take on Dark Shadows. He’ll also tackle the script for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which has a $69-million budget.
worst idea ever or just extremely stupid?