Starts shooting in New Orleans in March
Just a few days ago, it was announced that Anthony Mackie of The Hurt Locker was signed on to Timur Bekmambetov’s adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter for 20th Century Fox. As luck would have it, Mackie was doing interviews for his role in George Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau opposite Matt Damon, so we asked him about the casting rumors. It just so happens that we spoke to him on what would have been Abraham Lincoln’s 202nd birthday… if he was a vampire himself, that is. Mackie told us the movie would be shooting in his birthplace of New Orleans starting in March and why the project interested him.
“The great thing about it and what I loved about the movie is the idea that it’s the actual storyline,” Mackie said. “They took Abraham Lincoln’s biography, moment by moment, and put this sub-storyline of vampires in it, and I think that’s kind of interesting. It kind of entices the next generation to look at history in way that’s new and creative. I feel that if you watch this movie and you talk about it, you’re talking about actual history, just with new plot points in it. That starts in like four or five weeks, we start shooting in New Orleans so I get to go home and work for three months.”
Anyone who has seen Bekmambetov’s Night Watch or Day Watch or Wanted will know that the Russian filmmaker absolutely loves to do some crazy action scenes, and we wondered if we might see any of that in a period piece that’s meant to be historically accurate (other than the vampires, of course).
“That’s why I’m so interested in doing the movie, not so much because of the vampires or Abraham Lincoln, it’s the history aspect and I want to see just how far can he take it, because he’s such an interesting guy and his style of directing and way of working is so interesting. It’s unlike anything I’ve done in my career so far, so we’ll see.”
You can read the full interview with Mackie over on ComingSoon.net before Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau opens nationwide on March 4.
Source: Edward Douglas
