New TV movie! A TV movie based on Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln” should murder the competition in the ratings. (National Geographic Channels)
Super Bowl ad! Honest Abe is the perfect car pitchman — Lincolns, of course. (
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Brad Pitt better watch his back. The most unlikely leading man of the moment has massive name recognition and, best of all, is willing to work for 1865 dollars. He’s Abraham Lincoln.
Were he alive today, Honest Abe would probably be living in a 30,000-square-foot log cabin up in the Hollywood Hills. He’d be driving a horse-drawn Bentley. TMZ would be ambushing him outside the Ivy and asking about his ongoing feud with Stephen Douglas. He’d be dating Lindsay Lohan — not by choice, but simply because it was his turn.
No doubt about it: Lincoln, who was born 204 years ago today, is hot. His eponymous movie is up for 12 Academy Awards. (Steven Spielberg is the frontrunner for Best Director and Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor.) He cameoed in a Super Bowl ad for Ford’s Lincoln Motors. He will star in two projects this month alone: the film “Saving Lincoln” and the TV movie “Killing Lincoln” (which is it, fellas?). Last year, he popped up in a memorable sketch on “Saturday Night Live” played by comedian Louis C.K.
“The attention is well-deserved,” says Salvador Litvak, director and co-writer of Friday’s “Saving Lincoln,” a Civil War drama in which the action is staged against actual 1860s photos using a green screen.
“Thank God, people are looking up to a guy like Abraham Lincoln and not any of the other creepy heroes that are out there. He’s a real hero. He doesn’t need an ax in his hand killing the undead to be a superhero.”
Last year’s bomb “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” actually did have Abe chopping the undead, and it’s one of the few projects featuring the 16th president to flop.
His popularity right now is no surprise. Lincoln, like all of the biggest movie stars, has morphed from a regular mortal into an almost mythic character, his reputation (and Q score) driven by a mix of fact, rumor and legend. Did Lincoln really have a scar on his face from fighting a gang of thieves? Did Ryan Gosling really save a woman in the East Village from getting hit by a car? Who cares. It’s all part of their story now.
In the same way that Angelina Jolie, say, represents sexuality, and Clint Eastwood represents gritty toughness, Lincoln symbolizes a kind of old-fashioned decency that we don’t see much anymore.
That’s no doubt part of why he’s so appealing on-screen. When we go see movies starring Lincoln, it’s like going to see a Jimmy Stewart flick. We enter with certain expectations — usually rewarded — that this will be a good-hearted tale featuring an upstanding protagonist for whom we can root.
Abe’s story is rich with drama and contains much that audiences can relate to, especially during hard times.
“Since 2008, people have been hurting, and Lincoln represents the idea that you don’t have to be rich or educated to be important or make a difference,” Litvak says.
Commanders in chief, like audiences, also find him relatable.
“Every president to whom I’ve spoken identifies themselves with Lincoln, regardless of party,” says Harold Holzer, Lincoln scholar, author of numerous books and the content consultant for “Lincoln.” Through the lens of Lincoln, “[George H.W.] Bush saw himself as a warrior who loved peace, Clinton as a populist who lived the American dream by rising from obscurity, and [George W.] Bush was a tough person who might have to tread on constitutional rights to preserve the country.”
Expect to see loads more of Lincoln in the months to come — at least until his inevitable fall when his beard is discovered to have been fabricated in a Beverly Hills plastic-surgery office.
reed.tucker@nypost.com