Steven Spielberg Talks Up Procedural Aspects Of 'Lincoln;' Hopes To Shoot 'Robopocalypse' Summer '12

Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin is opening very soon in the UK and France, with a US debut coming a couple months later, on December 21. In advance of the film's premiere overseas, the director is starting to do some interviews. Naturally, some questions are aimed at his future projects, such as Lincoln, which will star Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln, and the adaptation of the novel Robopocalypse.

Thanks to one interview, we've got a good statement from Spielberg about the procedural nature of Lincoln, and his hopeful shoot window for Robopocalypse.

Spielberg told Empire that Lincoln isn't as visual a historical recreation as Amistad, calling it "very much like a procedural."  His fascination is with "the greatest working President in American history doing some of the greatest work for the world." Or, for a lot more detail, there's this:

We start shooting in October. Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team Of Rivals is much too big a book to be a movie, so the Lincoln story only takes place in the last few months of his Presidency and life. I was interested in how he ended the war through all the efforts of his generals...but more importantly how he passed the 13th Amendment into constitutional law. The Emancipation Proclamation was a war powers act and could have been struck down by any court after the war ended...But what permanently ended slavery was the very close vote in the House of Representatives over the 13th Amendment – that story I'm excited to tell.

It is indeed an exciting story. There'll be a challenge in making it cinematic, but that's where Daniel Day-Lewis will be crucial; he has the ability to intensify the drama of just about any exchange.

Meanwhile, turns out that part of the attraction Spielberg had to Robopocalypse was that it harkened back in some way to one of his earlier projects:

[Robopocalypse] reminded me of Michael Crichton. I'm in pre-production on it right now. I'm hoping to start shooting the picture some time in '12. I don't exactly know when, hopefully some time this summer, for a '13 release.