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.
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