John Cusack Cast as Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven

Steve Barton |

Aug 27, 2010

John Cusack Cast as Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven After seeing Jeffrey Combs tackle Edgar Allan Poe in both the Masters of Horror episode “The Black Cat” and live on stage in Nevermore, I am convinced that there’s no other actor alive today who can portray the troubled author nearly as well. Still, that’s not gonna stop mainstream Hollywood from trying.

John Cusack announced today via his Twitter account (follow @johncusack) the following, and we quote:

“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”

Well then. Maybe you should learn to spell his name correctly for starters, Mr. Cusack. That would be a golden way to start off!

James McTeigue (Ninja Assassin) is on board to direct The Raven, based on the world of Edgar Allan Poe. What approach does the director plan on using to bring one of horror’s most influential writers ever to the big screen? “We are planning for a lot of gore,” McTeigue tells Dread Central. “With Poe, I would be remiss in not including some gory stuff especially within the context of his work,” explained McTeigue.

“There are so many incredible macabre and paranoid elements in what Poe accomplished as a writer so I want to bring those to the big screen. I want to put audiences in 1850s Baltimore but the twist is that I want it to come from the way I imagined Poe saw the world, not necessarily what was really happening at that time and give it a bit of a pop twist on top of that.”

“The Raven will look at a serial killer that uses Poe’s work as inspiration so there will be fictionalized elements to the film. I would still like to stay true to the character he was, but I also don’t want to make a Poe biopic either. So there will be some dark themes running throughout the movie that may just touch on some of what we know about Poe’s life,” McTeigue added.