Lincoln still alive?

Steven Spielberg’s LINCOLN project has been in the works almost since the Emancipation Proclamation, but there’s no telling when (or where) the famed former president will ultimately appear on screen.

Spielberg’s company Dreamworks was in a state of flux after extricating itself from Paramount until ultimately settling in at Disney, but Paramount supposedly kept a firm grip on the LINCOLN project, which Dreamworks had developed while on the Paramount lot.

Paramount has reportedly since passed on retaining the project and Spielberg’s services (after an apparently torturous decision process), but that doesn’t necessarily mean the newly trimmed Dreamworks will handle Honest Abe themselves — although other reports claim that Disney is already planning a revamped Hall of Presidents in anticipation of Liam Neeson portraying the fashionably bearded and hatted pres.

Spielberg is currently busy on TINTIN, but supposedly wants to get Mr. Penny Fivedollar in front of cameras before the end of this year, one way or another.