Edgar Allen Poe died in the service of voter fraud. Seriously. He was the victim (or a willing participant, we don’t know) in ‘cooping,’ in which people were snatched up, drugged and drank up and then carried from voting precinct to voting precinct and forced to deliver fraudulent votes. Poe was a heavy drinker, and some suspect that rather than be forced into the fraud he took part willingly as a way to get plenty of booze.
Whatever the case, Poe’s last days were hardly those of a hero. But in this post League of Extraordinary Gentlemen world, we can recast him in any role we like. Or any role that James McTiegue likes; the filmmaker tells Slashfilm that his next movie, The Raven, tries to fill in Poe’s final days as a hunt for a serial killer.
Apparently the killer’s crimes are inspired by Poe’s own stories and the author must hunt the man down and stop him before something else bad happens. I just hope the killer is revealed to be a gorilla. That, and that alone, would make this concept worthwhile.
This is the sort of movie that really appeals to people who have a history of the world gathered via Wikipedia summaries.
The good news is that this really opens up a spot for me to pitch my new movie idea: Abe Vigoda must hunt down a serial killer who is offing people in ways that relate to Barney Miller. For instance, he throws a guy named Ron through a huge glass window.