Our last update on James McTeigue’s THE RAVEN focused on the rumor that Ewan McGregor and Jeremy Renner were in talks to join the thriller, which is set to be both a fictional account of Edgar Allan Poe’s life mixed with scenarios from his more famous short stories. Whether or not one or both of those guys actually joins still remains to be seen, but we do know who will be in the thing: John Cusack.
Cusack actually broke the news himself earlier this morning, via Twitter, that he’ll be playing the legendary horror poet. Here’s his wacky tweet: officiali- will play edgar allen poe in fall-a-film called the raven, send any poe- gold – my way as i begin this journey into the abyss
Uh, yeah, okay John. Go back to sleep. (Or back to whatever you’re doing off a table at Jeremy Piven’s house.)
The project sounds kind of cool in that “what an interesting angle if it doesn’t blow up in everyone’s faces” kind of way. As described by McTeigue: “It’s sort of Se7en meets a series of Poe stories. It’s set in 1850s Baltimore, and it’s about creating Poe’s version of 1850s Baltimore, him moving through it. So it has a lot of the Poe stories interwoven into it.”
I’ve heard that, thanks to his stage performance as the tortured writer, Jeffrey Combs is now the definitive Poe. Cusack, who is often so very John Cusack, has quite a challenge ahead is he’s going to make Poe his own.
Naomi Harris, from James McTeigue’s NINJA ASSASSIN