Liam Neeson Gives Up On Spielberg's Lincoln Biopic

Turns out we weren't the only ones getting impatient as Steven Spielberg ran around making all kinds of other projects while leaving his Lincoln biopic, with Liam Neeson set to star, on the back burner. Doing press in the UK for The A-Team, Neeson revealed to GMTV (via Digital Spy) that he's finally abandoned the project:

I'm not actually playing Lincoln now. I was attached to it for a while, but it's now I'm past my sell-by date.

It's unclear if he means he was sick of waiting around for Spielberg or if he's too old for the part now, but it's probably a combination of the two-- Lincoln was 56 when he died, and Neeson is already 58. He's got the cragginess part down pat, but in a film that purports to cover much of Lincoln's life, Neeson would be pretty unconvincing as Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas debate era.

With Neeson gone i can't imagine Spielberg being able to go through with the project, especially since he never seemed all that serious about making it to begin with. It's a shame to lose such a promising project, but probably better than we don't all need to keep our hopes up for something that we all secretly knew would never happen anyway.