Hollywood blockbusters about Abraham Lincoln to clash

Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg are pushing ahead with separate films about Abraham Lincoln, despite the prospect of the biopics reaching cinemas at similar times.

Spielberg has said he would continue with his long-planned film about the US president who abolished slavery, after it emerged that Redford was planning a rival project that could be finished first.

The director told Variety magazine that he would not pull the plug on the film, which is set to star Liam Neeson.

Redford announced that his independently-financed film, The Conspirator, would start shooting next month, with a cast headed by James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn, the Guardian reports.

Rather than a biopic, it is the tale of the assassination of the president by actor and Confederacy sympathiser John Wilkes Booth. The plot will focus on the story of Mary Surratt (Wright Penn), who was allegedly one of Booth's aides.