Premiering Presidents Day weekend, Feb. 17, at 8 p.m. EST, National Geographic Channel's first original scripted drama, Killing Lincoln, presents one of the most significant events in U.S. history. With fresh historical insight, the film thrillingly chronicles the final days of President Abraham Lincoln and the treasonous plot by one the most notorious, yet complex villains of all time.
Narrated by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, the film stars Billy Campbell as Lincoln and introduces Jesse Johnson in a breakthrough performance as John Wilkes Booth. Produced by Scott Free Productions, the film adapts Bill O'Reilly's best-selling book into a two-hour television event. Additional cast includes Geraldine Hughes as Mary Todd Lincoln, Graham Beckel as Edwin Stanton, who served as secretary of war under the Lincoln administration, and Shawn Pyfrom as Private John Nichols. Shot on location in and around Richmond, Va., Killing Lincoln is directed by Adrian Moat, written by Emmy Award-winning writer/executive producer Erik Jendresen and produced by Herzog & Co.
With the North all but assured of victory after a four year Civil War, Southern stalwart John Wilkes Booth is plotting vengeance. He views President Lincoln as a tyrant eager to eradicate not just slavery, but the Southern way of life. He launches a clandestine plot to kidnap the president and spirit him away to the South -- an under-the-cover-of-darkness mission that ultimately fails. But out of that failure comes a dastardly new plan: to kill President Lincoln. Booth's ultimate success in murder would shock a nation and spark the largest manhunt in the country's young history.
The film opens in August 1864 and dramatically counts down the president's last days and actions leading up to the April 14 assassination at Ford's Theatre.
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