The first trailer for James Franco’s adaptation of the William Faulkner novel As I Lay Dying has arrived.  Adapting an author as verbose and complex as Faulkner is no easy task, but Franco is tackling As I Lay Dying head on as both director and star.  Given Franco’s incredibly varied tastes, it’s tough to tell if this film is a serious adaptation or just another one of his art experiments.  The drama is certainly played straightforward in this trailer, but the appearance of someone like Danny McBride in the cast is striking.  The verdict on the pic will be in soon enough, as the film is slated to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival which kicks off this week.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Tim Blake Nelson, Logan Marshall Green, Ahna O’Reilly, and Jim Parrack.

Just in time for Election Day, a new international trailer for director Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln has been released, and it’s by far the best one yet.  This trailer actually delves into the central focus of the long-in-the-works drama—the passing of the 13th Amendment—and gives us a much better idea of what kind of biopic Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner have crafted.  Much of this trailer is reminiscent of The West Wing, with Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln and his advisers working to secure enough votes to ensure that the amendment will pass.  The trailer also teases the multitude of strong performances from the ridiculously talented ensemble, and I can’t wait to see the whole thing unfold onscreen.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Oyelowo, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace and Jared Harris.  Lincoln opens on November 16th.

We posted the first teaser trailer for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln earlier this week in anticipation of the full trailer being released during the Google + Q&A.  Now that the full trailer is online, we finally get a chance to hear Daniel Day-Lewis speak as Abraham Lincoln.  If I’m being honest, his choice of tone and inflection is not exactly what I had expected, but who am I to tell Day-Lewis what to do?  There are plenty of scenes in the legislative houses, on the streets and on the battlefield, and they all give a sense of scope and tone to the film, just like Spielberg said it would during the Q&A.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Oyelowo, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace and Jared Harris. Lincoln opens on November 16th. [Update: We added 7 new images after the jump]

The first teaser trailer for director Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln has been released.  The teaser comes just days ahead of the first full trailer and live Google+ Q&A with Spielberg and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  The teaser gives us our first look at Daniel Day-Lewis in motion, though we only see glimpses of him as the titular President.  There’s also a shot of who appears to be David Oyelowo dressed in Union attire as he turns and walks away from Lincoln.  A narration of the Gettysburg address plays over scenes of Civil War combat, but who is speaking remains unclear for the moment.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace, and Jared Harris. Lincoln opens on November 16th.

In January 2011, we reported that James Franco was set to make his directorial debut by adapting William Faulkner‘s As I Lay Dying.   He planned to get the movie in front of cameras in the summer, but obviously that didn’t happen (he also wanted to shoot an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s Blood Meridian this year).  Today, Showbiz 411 reports As I Lay Dying has finally gotten back on track with a shoot set up for October in Mississippi.  Franco is also starting to line up roles for the adaptation, which is based on a book that contains twelve different points-of-view.  The cast will include Danny McBride, Tim Blake Nelson, Logan Marshall Green, Ahna O’Reilly, and Jim Parrack.  Franco will have a small role in the picture.

Directing Faulkner is a tall order, which is why no one has gotten an adaptation to the big screen since 1959′s The Sound and the Fury.  Faulkner’s novels are incredibly complex, which is partially the result of writing books with over 200 pages and only seven sentences.  Hit the jump for the synopsis of As I Lay Dying.

Steven Spielberg‘s Abraham Lincoln movie, Lincoln, has landed a release date.  We previously reported that the film would open after the 2012 Presidential election so to as avoid any accusation that the movie was making a political statement (we’ll let the trailers and other advertising allow pundits to bloviate and fill airtime draw their own conclusions).  Disney has announced that the movie will open in limited engagement on November 9th before expanding nationwide on November 16th.  It’s worth noting that Lincoln will still be fighting vampires, except this time it will be at the box office.  The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 also opens on November 16th.

Lincoln stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President, and the all-star cast also features Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, David Oyelowo, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace, and Jared Harris. Hit the jump for a synopsis of the source material.

Tony Kaye made a big splash in 1998 with his directorial debut American History X.  He has kept busy in the years since, but maintained a low profile.  That could change with his new film Detachment.  The cast will bring name recognition to the film: veterans Adrien Brody, James Caan, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu, Marcia Gay Harden, Bryan Cranston, William Petersen, Blythe Danner, Tim Blake Nelson are joined by fresh faces like Betty Kaye and Sami Gayle.  Tribeca Films acquired the film in September, and has released trailers and clips over the last month that stand out from the vast collection of promotional material we host here at Collider.  The story follows a substitute teacher (Brody) on assignment at a failing public school.  The appeal of Detachment is in the execution, so hit the jump for trailers, clips, posters, and images from the film.

Universal has released the first trailer for Ken Kwapis’ feel-good whale-rescue movie Big Miracle.  Formerly titled “Everybody Loves Whales” (not a great title, but far more informative than the generic “Big Miracle”), the story is inspired by the true story of a group effort to get three gray whales back to the ocean after they’re trapped under ice from the Arctic Circle.  Combined with Dolphin Tale and Shark Night, it looks like people are ready to care about sea life again.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film stars Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Kristen Bell, Dermot Mulroney, Tim Blake Nelson, Stephen Root, and Ted Danson.  Big Miracle opens February 3, 2012.

The first trailer for the heist comedy Flypaper has been released. Directed by Rob Minkoff, the film centers on two different groups of robbers who attempt to hold up a bank at the same time. While Tim Blake Nelson is spot on, the trailer seems a bit lacking, trying too hard to be Clue but coming up short. And the Patrick Dempsey/Ashley Judd romance doesn’t seem to work at all. Matt saw the film at Sundance and while he thought the film ultimately didn’t work as well as it tried, it was still good for a few laughs.

In addition to Dempsey, Judd and Nelson, the film also stars Mekhi Phifer, Jeffrey Tambor, John Ventimiglia, and Matt Ryan. Hit the jump to check out the trailer.

A slew of actors are now in negotiations to join the cast of Steven Spielberg’s long-in-gestation Abraham Lincoln biopic Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewis is set to star as our nation’s 16^th president, with Sally Field attached to play his wife Mary Todd. Now, the names of those currently in negotiations to join the project are as follows (deep breath): Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Hawkes, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill (Fair Game), Joseph Cross (Milk), David Costabile (Breaking Bad), Byron Jennings (Julie & Julia), Dakin Matthews (True Grit), Boris McGiver (The Wire), Gloria Reuben (ER), Jeremy Strong (The Happening) and David Warshofsky (Taken). Now that’s one hell of a cast.

Jones will play Pennsylvanian Republican congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a strong supporter of abolishing slavery and a man crucial to the legislation that funded the Civil War. Gordon-Levitt is in talks to play Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd. Robert was Abraham’s eldest son and the only one to live past his teenage years. No word on who the other actors will be playing, but one assumes that Lincoln’s cabinet will make up a good deal of the roles. Hit the jump to read the full press release. Lincoln is set to start filming in Virginia this fall, with a 4^th-quarter 2012 release.

The films I saw at Sundance this year involved a variety of subjects ranging from hippies to shot-gun wielding hobos to cults to young love to hippies to puppetry to cults to euthanasia to hippies to Roger Corman to cults.  I didn’t think my first year at Sundance would close out with an inoffensive, innocuous movie like Flypaper.  A caper comedy that wants to be Inside Man meets Clue meets Ten Little Indians but never becomes a fraction as good as any of those movies, Flypaper still manages some laughs due to its manic energy, non-stop jokes, and the brilliant Tim Blake Nelson.

The Sundance Institute has announced its juries for this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  There are plenty of notable names that will judging this year’s in-competition films including The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, as well as directors Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Susanne Bier (In a Better World), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), Bong Joon-Ho (The Host), and Clark Gregg (Choke).  Actor-writer-director Tim Blake Nelson (Leaves of Grass) will host the awards ceremony on January 29th.

Hit the jump for the full press release and a list of all of the jury members.  The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20th – 30th.

Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass is a rousing romp through the juxtapositions of a life of crime and a life of academia that never speaks down to its audience and provides plenty of dark humor and lasting impressions. The film’s veteran cast helps flesh out the background, and the interplay between two Edward Norton’s on screen is delightfully entertaining. Darkness, humor, pot smoking, and plenty of larger-than-life questions permeate this mixture of genres and topics, creating a film that you won’t soon forget. Hit the jump for the full review of the film and the DVD.

Edward Norton plays twin-brothers in Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass, and as we can see in this exclusive clip, the zany part isn’t just seeing two Norton’s on screen but also the wild story. Norton reportedly wanted this role so badly, he took a pay cut to play two characters in a single film. Unlike Fight Club, he actually plays both characters in this film. Check out the exclusive black light clip after the break and a full synopsis.

We have three pieces of casting news for you this afternoon.  First up, Variety reports that Stellan Skarsgård (Angels & Demons) is in talks to play Martin Vanger in David Fincher’s adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Tattoo centers on the 40-year disappearance of a young woman and the journalist (played by Daniel Craig) attempting to find out what happened to her.  Martin Vagner is one of the prime suspects.  The highly-coveted role of female hero Lisbeth Salander is yet to be cast.

Hit the jump for casting news on Everybody Loves Whales and Old St. Louis.