The summer wannabe blockbusters have the Super Bowl as their big ad launching point, but there’s rarely a comparable spot for Oscar bait prestige pics. Unless, of course, you are Steven Spielberg, your film is Lincoln, and it happens to be arriving in a US election year, with a sure-fire telly ratings monster in the debates. The DreamWorks / Fox team took full advantage, putting out a new extended TV spot for the movie that you can watch above.
So hefty is this spot that it’s effectively a new trailer for the film, and effective is certainly a word you could use to describe it, putting the focus firmly back on Daniel Day-Lewis’ speech-happy performance as the man himself.
There are a few moments and lines we’ve seen before, but they’re wrapped around plenty of new material and good scenes for the likes of Sally Field (as Mary Todd Lincoln) and Tommy Lee Jones (as Thaddeus Stevens).
It’s the sort of stirring visual / audio treat that makes you wish we had more people like Honest Abe in politics these days.
With Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jackie Earle Haley, Jared Harris, Lee Pace, James Spader, Walton Goggins, John Hawkes and David Strathairn also among the sprawling cast, Lincoln will land here on January 25.