Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

The Raven

5/3/11 - Relativity Media will release James McTeigue's untitled Raven project on March 9, 2012, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Raven, a gritty period thriller, stars John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve and Brendan Gleeson.  Cusack plays Edgar Allan Poe, who joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Evans) to hunt down a mad serial killer who is using Poe's own works as the basis of a string of brutal killers. Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare penned the script.  Intrepid Pictures is producing Raven with Glen Basner's FilmNation Entertainment, who is repping foreign rights to the film.

1/20/11 - Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media picked up mystery-thriller The Raven, starring John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Director James McTiegue recently wrapped production. In the film, Poe frantically tries to hunt down a serial killer who is inspired by Poe’s writings.  Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare penned the script. Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson, Alice Eve and Oliver Jackson-Cohen also star.  Relativity hasn’t set a release date for the film which was produced and financed by Intrepid Pictures.  It’s possible Relativity will change the title.

10/13/10 - Luke Evans and Alice Eve are in negotiations to star opposite John Cusack in The Raven, the Edgar Allan Poe-centered period thriller being directed by James McTeigue, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Evans will play a detective who partners with Poe (Cusack) to search for a serial killer who has kidnapped the author's fiancee (Eve) and gone on a murder spree that mimics the author's work. The project begins shooting in late October, with Budapest and Serbia standing in for 1849 Baltimore.

11/23/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that an upcoming film called The Raven tells a story about what would happen if Edgar Allan 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 Poe's fiction.  Director James McTeigue revealed some of the classic Poe stories that provide inspiration for his upcoming movie. "'The Raven,' 'Tell-Tale Heart,' 'Premature Burial,' 'Murders in the Rue Morgue,'" McTeigue said. "There's a whole lot of them. It's actually a pretty cool concept."  McTeigue said. "It's sort of Se7en meets a series of Poe stories. 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."  The real Poe never solved any serial murders. But within his historical fantasy, McTeigue plans to present an accurate version of the author.  "It's a total fiction, but obviously Poe is, like, a well-known and much-beloved character," McTeigue said. "People know a lot about him, the way he was a bit of a rascal, the way he was a bit of drunkard, the way he married his 13-year-old cousin. He was penniless for most of his life. He touched on consumption, like a lot of people did then, so all those kind of real elements are bled into a fictionalized story."  McTeigue has already begun prepping The Raven and expects to begin shooting next year. "I've already done some initial location scouting," he said. "I'm in the middle of casting, and hopefully it'll get going by about mid-March."

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