A new image of John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe in the thriller The Raven has been released, while its hardly the first image we have seen nor the first official image it still gives us a little idea of the texture and tone of James McTeigue's [V for Vendetta] helmed film. Set in 1849 the film stars Cusack as the iconic writer who teams up with a detective in hopes of stopping a murderer who is inspired by Poe’s work [which included people who were slowly tortured & buried alive. The writer also married his 13-year-old cousin.] McTeigue on casting Cusack: "I wanted someone who could show all the demons but ultimately you would connect with him. People respond to him, but I also thought in the character of John Cusack there’s a darker side." The Raven hits theaters on March 9th, 2012. Hit the jump for the details.
In this gritty thriller, Edgar Allen Poe (John Cusack, Being John Malkovich) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans, Immortals) to hunt down a mad serial killer who’s using Poe’s own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders. Directed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta), the film also stars Alice Eve (Sex and the City 2), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Faster).When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper—part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story.Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.
