Saturday at WonderCon, Timur Bekmambetov debuted new footage and a 3-D trailer for his upcoming revisionist fantasy-actioner history lesson Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter -- the Seth Grahame-Smith-penned retelling of how America's 16th President saved the nation... from vampires. Watch the 2-D version of the trailer after the jump and marinate on the wholly new lessons we can learn from the saga of Honest Abe -- or, as star Benjamin Walker explained to the crowd in Anaheim: "As an American, I want to know that my leaders are strong and have the capacity to make decisions -- and cut some heads off."
The new trailer squeezes in some backstory between the insane amounts of axe-twirling action on display, depicting why Lincoln is so hell-bent on ridding his country of the insidious new vampire scourge -- they killed his family, and he wants revenge.
Bekmambetov, Walker, and Grahame-Smith (who adapted his own novel) were on hand to give context to the seeming silliness of their high concept film; supernatural bloodsuckers aside, their tale follows the real-life achievements and events that made Lincoln one of history's best-loved presidents. The trio described their version on Lincoln's life as a "superhero origin story" in which the movie Lincoln fights for what the real Lincoln did hundreds of years ago: In a nutshell, freedom.
Additional footage shown gave an expanded glimpse of how the vampire-slayer metaphor works within a larger historical context. In it, Lincoln and his cohort William Johnson (Anthony Mackie), prepare for a vampire assault as they travel by train to Gettysburg. "It’s 80 miles from here to Gettysburg," growls Lincoln "80 miles will decide if this nation belongs to the living or the dead."
Lincoln and Johnson proceed to chop and blast their way through a gaggle of vampires, with Lincoln making swift and economical use of his trusty axe. (Grahame-Smith and Bekmambetov took inspiration from the real-life Lincoln's handiness with the tool.) At one point atop the moving train, Lincoln and Johnson work in tandem to fend off their attackers -- the President and his African-American friend, literally battling evil together.
Look for more on Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter in Movieline's upcoming chat with Bekmambetov.