“Remember when I wrote that story about the guy who builds a giant pendulum with a big knife on the end of it just to kill a guy? Even *I* didn’t think that was believable. Frankly, I just thought it sounded kinda goth.”
Here we have the first trailer for The Raven, from director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta), starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, who, on the eve of his death, teams up with police to catch a serial killer who’s using Poe’s stories as a guide to his murders. I can’t remember a movie since Identity that sounded so much like a script written by Charlie Kaufman’s brother Donald in Adaptation.
“Mom called it ‘psychologically taut’.” -James McTeigue’s brother, Steve.
I enjoy that even now that they’ve substituted Edgar Allen Poe for a character Nic Cage would usually play, he still says things like, “I’ll send you to hell!” and “No matter what happens, I will kill him!”
Poe in writing: “‘Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, ‘art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore –
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!'”
Poe in person, as written by Hollywood: “AUUGHH! What the f*ck, bird, are you gay? Come at me, bro!”
Who knew?
[HD at Apple, embed via ComingSoon]