In the age of Just Jared and paparazzi snaps, the first official stills
of a film are rarely exciting. Put a famous actor in a costume, have
him or her step out of the trailer, and it’s on the Internet being
judged before we even know the final cast. We live in speedy times, and
some of the fun of this stuff has been lost along the way.
Yeah, I’m fleshing out the word count a bit. It’s a slow news season and all I’ve got for you is the first official photo from The Raven
— not the “next District 9” that’s being set up at Universal, but the
“John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe” film directed by James McTeigue. We
first saw snaps of Cusack and his cravat last month, but now we have a
gloomy still of him with the ubiquitous avian. It made it’s desaturated
debut on The Huffington Post.
The
thriller is a fictionalized account of the last days of the Gothic
poet, and has him on the hunt of a serial killer. Poe’s death was as
bizarre as his literary work — he was found delirious on the streets of
Baltimore, wearing someone else’s clothes, and mumbling the name of
“Reynolds.” He died before he could explain how and why he was in such a
state, and The Raven
is undoubtedly going to spin its own take on it. It could be a
delicious thriller, all gloom and gore, or it could be as clunky as all
those “famous author as detective” stories that line your Barnes and
Noble shelves.
The photo, unfortunately, doesn’t help us decide
that one way or another. And why should it? It’s a photograph, for
heaven’s sake. Feel free to argue whether or not Cusack looks too healthy and robust to be believable as the sickly poet, though.
[via Slashfilm]