With the advent of Twitter, casting announcements can come from anywhere, including the stars themselves, which is why it was quite a breakthrough for actor John Cusack to make the official announcement on his Twitter feed that he would be taking on the role of Edgar Allan Poe in James (V For Vendetta) McTeigue's thriller The Raven.

ComingSoon.net first learned about the project when we spoke to McTeigue for his previous movie Ninja Assassin, and he told us that his movie wouldn't be a straight adaptation of Poe's poem, as much as a serial killer thriller in which the famed horror author would have to solve clues of a string of murders based on his stories. The story would be set in Baltimore during the 1850s. (You can read that interview here.)

We hadn't heard much else except that the Oscar-nominated man of the moment Jeremy Renner was signed on for the movie along with Ewan McGregor. One has to figure one of them was going to play Poe and with Cusack claiming that role, we have to wonder whether either of these actors are still on board. (Renner just signed onto Mission: Impossible IV and will be playing Hawkeye in Joss Whedon's The Avengers, so he may be too busy to do this.)