Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Will Be Authentic Look at Lincoln, With Vampires

Steven Spielberg isn't the only director embarking on a historically accurate portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. Timur Bekmambetov is too! Albeit with vampires. "We are very committed," the director told the New York Times about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, his now-filming historical vampire epic starring Benjamin Walker as Lincoln. Translation: this version of Honest Abe will kill bloodsuckers in the most period-appropriate of settings possible.

Per the Times:

The film's production designer, François Audouy, has an unexpected approach to the historical aspects. He uses both computer effects and actual locations to blend the real and the artificial in ways that could only be imagined when Woody Allen posed with Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover in Zelig and Forrest Gump received a Medal of Honor from Lyndon B. Johnson. In the production office here in Louisiana recently, where the film will be shooting into next month, Mr. Audouy's associates were sorting through a stack of seemingly authentic Civil War maps, just a tiny sampling of the myriad props that are turning Vampire Hunter into a true period epic.

"Your tax dollars at work," said one associate. The map reproductions, she noted, were provided by the Library of Congress, which has lent a hand, as has Thomas F. Schwartz, the Illinois state historian.

Of course, not everyone will look at Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter with the same pair of historically accurate glasses. Producer Tim Burton being one of them. "I didn't really learn much [from the Seth Grahame-Smith source novel], but I like that idea of history being told this way."

Check out that photo above for your first look at Walker-as-Lincoln. From that distance, it's uncanny.

· Aside From the Vampires, Lincoln Film Seeks Accuracy [NYT]