John Cusack Will Be Edgar Allan Poe In James McTeigue's 'The Raven'

By Russ FischerAug. 27, 2010 1:03 pm EST

Wachowski siblings protege and V For Vendetta director James McTeigue has been planning to direct The Raven for the past year, and at one point had Jeremy Renner and Ewan McGregor both in talks for roles (perhaps the same role?) in the film. We don't know what happened with Mcgregor, while Renner is obviously going to be quite busy, between The Avengers, Mission: Impossible 4 (we'll keep using that title for now) and possibly Paul Thomas Anderson's project The Master.

But John Cusack has some free time, and today the actor said he's confirmed to play Edgar Allan Poe in the film by McTeigue.

The info comes from a tweet by Cusack, which said "officiali- will play edgar allan poe in fall-a-film called the raven, send any poe- gold – my way as i begin this journey into the abyss."

Clarifications: keep in mind that this is totally separate from the Poe film that Sylvester Stallone has long wanted to do. It is also totally separate from the feature version of the recent short film The Raven, which Universal is developing.

From previous reports, here's what we know about The Raven:

The Raven is a fictionalized account of the final five "mysterious" days of Edgar Allan Poe's life. Apparently the famous writer joins the hunt for a serial killer whose murders are inspired by his stories.

McTeigue describes it "like the poem, The Raven, itself, crossed with Se7en."

The screenplay is written by Hannah Shakespeare (who wrote the 2005 drama Loverboy, and was a story editor on Bionic Woman and Ghost Whisperer) and Ben Livingston.

Machinist/Session 9 director Brad Anderson had been previously developing the project.

The real death of Poe was also mysterious. The writer was discovered on the streets of Baltimore in great distress and in need of "immediate assistance." He was wearing someone else's clothes and repeating the name "Reynolds". He died shortly after in hospital, never able to explain what had happened.