First Official Image Of John Cusack As Edgar Allan Poe In ‘The Raven’

Entertainment Weekly have provided us with our first official look at John Cusack looking particularly suave and stern as Edgar Allan Poe in ‘The Raven.’ The film is helmed by ‘V For Vendetta’ director James McTeigue and is a fictionalized account of the mysterious final five days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life. In the film the famous writer teams up with a detective to search for a serial killer whose murders are inspired by his stories. The film co-stars Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson and Alice Eve and is set for a March 9th, 2012 release. Check out what the director had to say about the film below.

“What I was saying is we have real elements from Poe’s life, in and out of the story. He was a troubled figure and that’s alluded to in the film. Ultimately he becomes one of the characters in his own story,” McTeigue says.

Cusack, he said, could embody both heroism and darkness: “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.”