Tom Hanks Steps Into Lincoln’s Stovepipe Hat in Ambitious New Big-Screen Adaptation

Tom Hanks is not easing up. Two Oscars, seven Golden Globes, and a shelf full of everything else, and he keeps stacking projects: Elvis in 2022, The Phoenician Scheme in 2024, and he is back as Woody in Toy Story 5 next year, reteaming with Tim Allen for another action-heavy adventure under Disney and Pixar.

Tom Hanks is stepping into Abraham Lincoln

Hanks will play the 16th U.S. president in a feature adaptation of George Saunders' best-seller Lincoln in the Bardo. Saunders wrote the screenplay himself. Duke Johnson is directing, with the film backed by Starburns Industries. Here is the slightly wild swing: the movie will blend live-action and stop-motion animation. Hanks' Lincoln will be live-action, while other elements around him will incorporate stop-motion. It is a bold, slightly odd creative choice, which is exactly why I am curious.

The story they are tackling

Lincoln in the Bardo centers on the death of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's son, William Wallace 'Willy' Lincoln, who died in 1862 at the age of 11 from typhoid fever. The grief wrecked the family, and it hit Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War. Saunders' book lives in that liminal, haunted space around the loss and what it does to a person who also happens to be leading a nation at war. If the film hews to that, expect something piercing and emotional. The exact scope of Lincoln's life the movie will cover has not been spelled out yet.

How it fits with recent Lincoln portrayals

We have seen Lincoln a lot on screen, but this angle is different. In 2012, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln gave Daniel Day-Lewis the role that won him the 2013 Best Actor Oscar; the film also took Best Production Design and scored 13 nominations overall, drawing from Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals. More recently, in 2024, Hamish Linklater played Lincoln in the Apple TV+ series Manhunt, which followed the chase for John Wilkes Booth after the assassination. Hanks is entering a crowded, very well-defended lane — and the hybrid format signals he is not trying to repeat what those projects already did.

• Based on George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo; Saunders wrote the script
• Directed by Duke Johnson; backed by Starburns Industries
• Hybrid format: live-action and stop-motion; Hanks' Lincoln is live-action
• No other cast announced; no production or release timeline yet

The read

Hanks taking on Lincoln is both obvious and intriguing. Obvious because he has the gravitas. Intriguing because this story is grief-first, and the film's hybrid design suggests something formally adventurous. The bar is high after Day-Lewis and the recent TV turn, but Hanks playing a father staggering under loss, while the country burns, feels like a sweet spot for him — and a fresh way into the American icon for a new audience.