Looks like Aussie actress Robin McLeavy will have to leave the champers on ice just a bit longer: while she was rumoured earlier this week as the frontrunner to play Mary Todd (the future Mrs Mary Todd Lincoln) in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, Fox has picked one of the other top candidates for the job instead. So send all congratulations to Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
She’ll bring the fighting skills she learned on Scott Pilgrim and the badass abilities she honed for The Thing to the Timur Bekmambetov movie adapted from Seth Grahame-Smith’s genre-splicing book.
In the story, Abe Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) swears revenge against the fanged types who slaughter his mother. He’s helped in his crusade against the vamps (and their slave-owning supporters) by Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper) a member of the fang club who saves Abe’s life and trains him up to battle the undead bastards.
Mary Todd is a winsome 20-something who catches Abe’s eye and helps him in his fight. And given that it chronicles their younger days, don’t go expecting to see their ill-fated trip to the theatre later in life.
With Tim Burton on board as producer, and most of his lead cast in place, Bekmambetov will be cranking the cameras soon, aiming at a June 22 release next year.