John Cusack Resurrects Poe

Actor John Cusack is scheduled to bring the “godfather of goth” back to life in a film called The Raven, which will be released next March.

According to the Associated Press, at Comic-Con in San Diego last month, Cusack spoke to a group of some 6,500 fans about the upcoming picture, saying Poe’s “unflinching ability to delve into the abyss and come back, to play with the edge,” reminded him of Hunter S. Thompson.

The 45-year-old actor said he was eager to take on the role of the "godfather of Goth" in this fictionalized account of Poe's final days. In The Raven, the writer forms a reluctant partnership with a police detective to catch a murderer who kills his victims by following elements of Poe’s stories. Alice Eve plays Poe’s love interest, Alice, and Luke Evans plays the police detective. The film is directed by James McTeigue.

Cusack described the dark thriller as "an art movie and a popcorn movie at once."

The publicity machine has a bit more to say about The Raven’s plot:

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th-century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields ... 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.

So, will any of this finally put to rest the question of which city has the greater right to Poe’s remains, Baltimore or Philadelphia? Probably not. But, even so, the film sounds fantastic. We can’t wait!