Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln to move forward with the help of several LOA friends

The news out of Hollywood this week is that Daniel Day-Lewis has agreed to play the lead in the long-delayed Steven Spielberg–produced epic Lincoln. The project features the involvement of several writers who have also provided invaluable support and advice to The Library of America over the years:

• Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, a member of the LOA’s Committee of Consultants for History, wrote Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the book on which the movie is based.
• John Logan, whose play Red won this year’s Tony Award for Best Drama, co-wrote the screenplay (with Paul Webb). Logan is a longtime supporter of The Library of America and is the Guardian of three LOA books, having provided the financing necessary to insure they will never go out of print. One of the books he adopted is Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859–1865.
• Tony Kushner, whose Angels in America captured both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1993, revised the screenplay. He recently joined The Library of America’s Board of Directors.

Spielberg’s isn’t the only Lincoln-themed motion picture on the horizon. Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator,” about the trial of Mary Surratt (convicted as an accomplice in the plot to assassinate Lincoln), will be in theaters this coming spring.

Of related interest: In September The Library of America reissued its paperback edition of Lincoln’s major writings and speeches, with an introduction by Gore Vidal.