Tom Hanks to Play Lincoln in Stop-Motion Hybrid Film

Picture Abraham Lincoln not as a portrait in a history book, but alive in a strange, liminal space—played by Tom Hanks. Strange, yes. Intriguing, absolutely.

The new adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo is shaping up to be one of the year’s most daring movie experiments: a live-action performance at the center of a stop-motion puppet world. Tom Hanks will anchor the film in a live-action turn as the sixteenth president while a roster of voice talent fills the spectral ensemble.

Willem Dafoe joins as Reverend Orville Thomas, a cleric who dies waiting for heaven and finds something else instead. Jonathan Bailey lends his voice to Roger Bevins, a heartbroken young man whose tragic choices haunt him with immediate regret. Peter Dinklage will be heard as Hans Vollman, a restless spirit desperate to return to a much younger wife. The cast is eclectic on purpose—part history, part imagination.

George Saunders himself is adapting the book for the screen, and Duke Johnson, known for Anomalisa, is directing. Expect a tone that’s intimate and eerie at once: the narrative follows Lincoln’s private grief after the death of his 11-year-old son, told through a chorus of living and dead characters—historical figures rubbing shoulders with invented souls.

Production is slated to begin in London next year, with the unusual technical demands of stop-motion and live-action integration at the heart of the schedule. Tom Hanks will reportedly shoot another project first, but Lincoln in the Bardo is next on his plate. That stacking of projects is typical of Hanks’ recent career rhythm—Greyhound, News of the World, Finch, Elvis, A Man Called Otto, Asteroid City and Here.

This isn’t a conventional biopic; it’s a mood piece about grief and the afterlife, filtered through puppetry and film craft.

What does this hybrid approach mean for viewers? It promises something cinematic and oddly intimate: a theatrical puppet chorus surrounding a palpable, human Lincoln. If the cast and creative team deliver, this could be the sort of adaptation that lingers—awkward, beautiful, and fiercely original.