Steven Spielberg: He wants to shoot ‘Abraham Lincoln’ in 2009

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Steven Spielberg‘s long-rumored Abraham Lincoln biopic will go into production in 2009. It may be the director’s next project after ‘Tintin,’ which is expected to go into production in September.

‘I want to start ‘Lincoln’ in early 2009, because it’s Lincoln’s 200th anniversary,’ Spielberg told German magazine Focus while doing advance press for ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.’ (Editor’s note: German-to-English translation via Google translator.)

Marvin Levy, Spielberg’s spokesman, confirmed the director’s production plans to the Los Angeles Times on Sunday morning.

Liam Neeson, who was in talks to play the 16th U.S. president based on an adaptation of ‘Team of Rivals: The Genius of Abraham Lincoln,’ a biography by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, is still associated with the project, Levy confirmed.

It was expected that Spielberg’s next project would be ‘Chicago Seven,’ about protesters at the historic 1968 Democratic National Convention, but the script was not ready and production had to be postponed.

While Spielberg’s shingle DreamWorks is currently home to the ‘Lincoln’ and ‘Tintin’ projects, it remains to be seen whether the production company will retain its ties with distributor Paramount.

-- Sheigh Crabtree