Just as every generation gets James Bond, Generation Z deserves its Edgar Allen Poe. It’s been nearly a decade since millennial Poe John Cusak appeared in The Raven, which sees the writer investigating a killer inspired by his work. Despite the franchise potential, “CSI: Edgar Allen Poe” never got off the ground, opening the door for the Poe of today.
Harry Melling, once known for playing Harry Potter’s cruel cousin Dudley, but now known for playing chess on the ceiling with Anya Taylor Joy (or whatever The Queen’s Gambit is about), will play Edgar Allan Poe in the Netflix murder- mystery The Pale Blue Eye. Directed by Scott Cooper, Melling will, you guessed it, solve mysteries as the young Edgar Allan Poe alongside a veteran detective played by Christian Bale. The pair will look into a series of murders at West Point, the U.S. army college where, the “detail-oriented” cadet Edgar Allan Poe himself, studies. The movie reunites Bale with Cooper, who worked together on Out Of The Furnace and Hostiles.
Melling continues his streak of working with name directors and stars. Following his role as the orator without arms or legs in The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, the actor starred as the Mark Zuckerberg surrogate in The Old Guard, Harry Beltik on the Queen’s Gambit. He also played opposite Spider-Man and Batman in The Devil All The Time. Melling will reteam with Joel Coen as Malcolm in The Tragedy Of Macbeth, which is supposedly coming out sometime this year.
The news leads to a single question: Does The Pale Blue Eye occur in the Raven-verse? Is this a prequel to The Raven? Us Raven-heads (or the Ravenous as we prefer to be called) deserve answers, and there’s only one man who can find them: Poe.