V for Vendetta Director Takes on Edgar Allan Poe Investigation
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
By: MrDisgusting

James McTeigue, director of The Invasion, V for Vendetta and the forthcoming Ninja Assassin, has been tapped to helm The Raven for FilmNation Entertainment and Endgame, reports /Film.

“It’s like the poem, 'The Raven', itself, crossed with 'Se7en'," he tells the site. "It should be pretty cool. The script is really good and everyone responds to it really well. I’m in the middle of casting.”

Written by Hannah Shakespeare and Ben Livingston, the film is a thriller set in the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, when he gets wrapped up in a serial killer investigation.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16978

Poe Goes "Torture Porn" In The Raven?
Source: SciFi Wire
November 23, 2009

SciFi Wire recently spoke to V For Vendetta director James McTeigue while out promoting Ninja Assassin and the filmmaker brought up his next movie The Raven.

Considering the grisly way that people met their ends in Poe's stories, the article goes on to imply that he's the original "torture porn" author. (Let's not be ridiculous though.) The Raven posits a story about what would happen if Poe were faced with the very murders he wrote about. In the movie, at the end of Poe's life, a serial killer challenges him to solve a series of killings inspired by his own fiction.

"The Raven, Tell-Tale Heart, Premature Burial, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Cask of Amontillado" are all incorporated stories name-checked by McTeigue for the film.



"It's sort of "Se7en" meets a series of Poe stories," he explains.

"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."



Don't expect a big star in the sure-to-be coveted Poe role.

"I think a lot of people in their mind's eye have a vision of how Poe should look," says McTeigue. "There's that kind of iconic photograph of him, where his head looks like a light bulb and his hair is out and he's got the little moustache, but he wasn't like that all the time. I want to pay service to that. Clooney and Pitt, they're good actors, but in my vision of it, they're not the people I'm thinking of."


Location scouting has begun, as well as initial casting.
McTeigue hopes to begin shooting in mid-March 2010.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=12918

McTiegue's Raven Nabs Renner, McGregor?
Source: NY Times
February 17, 2010


It's amazing to see Jeremy Renner's career finally take off, especially after toiling in the TV trenches then starring in the serial killer biopic Dahmer and 28 Weeks Later.

Now he's receiving acclaim for his turn in The Hurt Locker and we say good for him! The man deserves it. But the question now is: What's he doing next?


Peter Berg's big budget Battleship might be on the horizon, but in a New York Times article it states:

But first he'll squeeze in indie "Raven," a period thriller with Ewan McGregor in talks to co-star. "Locker has allowed me to exhale and go, 'OK, now I can really start,'" Renner says. "Maybe it's a form of arrival, maybe it's a type of beginning."


Raven. As in The Raven from filmmaker James McTiegue? If so, this is the first casting news we've heard about this upcoming Edgar Allan Poe project and the Renner/McGregor pairing is great.

In Raven, a serial killer terrorizes 1850's Baltimore, using Poe's stories as his methodology. He leaves clues at each murder leaving it up to Poe to find him before he kills again.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=14170

Cusack is Poe in The Raven
Source: John Cusack
August 27, 2010


With the advent of Twitter, casting announcements can come from anywhere, including the stars themselves, which is why it was quite a breakthrough for actor John Cusack to make the official announcement on his Twitter feed that he would be taking on the role of Edgar Allan Poe in James McTeigue's thriller The Raven.





ComingSoon.net first learned about the project when we spoke to McTeigue for his previous movie Ninja Assassin, and he told us that his movie wouldn't be a straight adaptation of Poe's poem, as much as a serial killer thriller in which the famed horror author would have to solve clues of a string of murders based on his stories.

The story would be set in Baltimore during the 1850s.






We hadn't heard much else except that the Oscar-nominated man of the moment Jeremy Renner was signed on for the movie along with Ewan McGregor.

One has to figure one of them was going to play Poe and with Cusack claiming that role, we have to wonder whether either of these actors are still on board.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=16347

^^^ They do look a like. This movie sounds interesting, but the copycat thing has been so many times.

Peep This! John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe
by Alyse Wax
Nov. 15, 2010


Gawker has a first look at John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven, currently filming in Budapest.

The film follows Poe as he searches for his kidnapped fiancee and her abductor, who is leaving a trail of bodies mimicking deaths in Poe's stories.

http://www.fearnet.com/news/b20952_peep_this_john_cusack_edgar_allan_poe.html

John Cusack As Edgar Allan Poe In The Raven
12-13-10


Here's John Cusack doing a spot-on Edgar Allan Poe for the upcoming psychological thriller The Raven.



Cusack announced his involved in the James McTeigue-directed film in August.

"official- 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," he tweeted.



The movie is a fictionalized account of Poe's mysterious last days--spent, as speculated by some, following a serial killer inspired by his horror stories.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/13/john-cusack-as-edgar-alla_n_795737.html

Another Look at Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe
Source: Shock Till You Drop
June 24, 2011


Here's another look at Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe

The James McTeigue-directed film opens March 9, 2012 and is the fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=19707

New Photos From The Raven Show John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe
By Alex Suskind
Posted Jul 21st 2011


The Raven follows Edgar Allen Poe during the last days of his life as he pursues a serial killer.

Joining Cusack will be Alice Eve, who plays Emily, and Luke Evans who plays Detective Emmett Fields.

The Raven has a release date of March 9, 2012.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/07/21/new-photos-from-the-raven-show-john-cusack-as-edgar-allen-poe/

Comic-Con 2011: Teaser Poster for The Raven
Source: Shock Till You Drop
July 21, 2011

Relativity has supplied us with a poster for The Raven, director James McTeigue's thriller starring John Cusack.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/comicconnews.php?id=20084

Watch the Trailer for The Raven
By Christopher Rosen
Posted Oct 7th 2011


You might not have thought a movie about a serial killer mimicking the works of Edgar Allen Poe would make for great cinema, but the trailer for The Raven is here to prove otherwise.

What initially seemed like a joke-y conceit -- John Cusack is Edgar Allen Poe -- looks kinda great.



The Raven is due for a March 9, 2012 release.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/10/07/the-raven-trailer/

Cusack Spreads His Wings in the New Poster for The Raven
by Ryan Turek
January 24, 2012


Entertainment Weekly has debuted this new poster for Relativity Media's The Raven, which was moved back from March 9th to April 27th yesterday.

Directed by James McTeigue, the thriller stars John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Jackson-Cohen


In the film, Edgar Allen Poe (Cusack) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Evans) to hunt down a mad serial killer who's using Poe's own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/165163-cusack-spreads-his-wings-in-the-new-poster-for-the-raven