There’s a dramatic new poster for James McTeigue’s The Raven starring John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe. Cusack’s co-star Luke Evans tweeted the poster earlier today: “New Raven poster! Awesome job guys!!” (@Mr_Luke_Evans)  This one is very cool. Reminds me of some of those Saul Bass posters from the 60s.

The Raven is a fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life, in which the poet joins forces with a Baltimore detective in pursuit of a mad serial killer (are there any other kind?) whose brutal string of murders mirror those in the writer’s stories. Evans plays Det. Emmett Fields.

The official synopsis:  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.”

Cusack is in talks to star with Nicolas Cage in The Frozen Ground, a drama to shoot this fall in Anchorage, Alaska based on true events surrounding Alaska’s most notorious serial predator, Robert Hansen, a respected family man who for over 12 years abducted more than 24 women and flew them into the Alaskan wilderness to be hunted. Cusack would play Hansen while Cage is in talks to play a principled and dedicated Alaskan State Trooper who finds Hansen’s only surviving teen victim alive on the street. Ooooo!

The Raven costars Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (soon to be seen in What’s Your Number?) and will open in the US on March 12, 2012.