Updated, 5:55 p.m. EST
Moviegoers got their first fleeting look at Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" on Monday, one of the most closely guarded awards contenders hitting theaters this fall.
It wasn't a full trailer (that debuts Thursday), but rather a teaser for the first extended look at the film. In less than a minute of footage, viewers are treated to a few shots of Daniel Day-Lewis gazing and walking purposefully, interspersed with scenes of Civil War carnage.
A voice-over includes someone reciting a passage from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, with a hint of a Southern accent. Debate has erupted on Twitter whether that voice belongs to Day-Lewis, as this post initially stated, or if it is another actor delivering the famous piece of oratory. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, so it makes historical sense that he might have a twang.
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In an unusual move, the film's producer DreamWorks will debut the full trailer for the biopic during a Google+ Hangout on Thursday. The Hangout will also be broadcast live on the ABC SuperSign in New York City’s Times Square.
The event will feature a live conversation with Spielberg and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, in the picture.
In addition to Day-Lewis and Gordon-Levitt, "Lincoln" costars Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones as the abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens and David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward. Tony Kushner of "Angels in America" fame wrote the screenplay based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's best-selling biography "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln."
"Lincoln" premieres in limited release on Nov. 9, 2012, before expanding on Nov. 16, 2012.