Lincoln

This page is the 2012 Steven Spielberg film, not the president (see Abraham Lincoln for the person). In the wiki it functions as one of Kyle’s recurring movie-as-argument examples about the economics of creative work. He recounts that Spielberg “had almost been forced to release his film, Lincoln, as a mini-series instead of a full feature film because he couldn’t get anyone to fund it! A movie made by Steven Spielberg, starring Daniel Day-Lewis!” — proof, in Kyle’s telling, that “the studio model had pushed those unique stories into the periphery in favor of massive blockbuster potential.”

The example appears in The Existential Dread of Cognitive Dissonance, where Kyle uses Hollywood’s “business of blockbusters” — its tilt toward spin-offs, sequels, and reboots over unique stories — as an analogy for what venture capital is incentivized to build. It recurs in The Hits Business as one of many films Kyle leans on to explain his thinking. The throughline: if even a Spielberg/Day-Lewis project nearly couldn’t get funded as a feature, the hits-driven model systematically marginalizes original work.

Context: Lincoln (2012), directed by Steven Spielberg with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, dramatizes the final months of Abraham Lincoln’s effort to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the performance.

Where this appears

• Steven Spielberg — the Lincoln funding struggle as evidence that the blockbuster model pushes unique stories to the periphery.
• The Existential Dread of Cognitive Dissonance — uses the Lincoln funding story as a Hollywood analogy for VC incentives.
• The Hits Business — cites Lincoln among the films Kyle uses to illustrate his thinking on hits-driven economics.