First Official Still Of John Cusack As Robert Downey Jr. As Edgar Allen Poe In 'The Raven'

So we're going to show our age a little here, but we never actually met Edgar Allen Poe. By all accounts, he was a pretty exciting dude, an accomplished writer and practitioner of cosmology and cryptography. Perhaps Sylvester Stallone, an older gentleman, knew Poe well (trained at the same gyms?), motivating him to spend years trying to adapt his life into a movie starring Robert Downey Jr.

While neither star is behind the new Poe project "The Raven," a supernatural detective story said to fill in the gaps that were Poe's final days, one might see the above resemblance between Stallone's imaging of Downey Jr. in the role of Poe, and 'Raven' producer James McTeigue casting of John Cusack, seen here in a costume we'd like to call Downey-Face.

Despite the fact that Cusack looks as uncomfortable holding this raven as he usually does running from fireballs in a series of blockbusters we can't believe he's starred in ("2012," "Con Air"), it's a distinguished look, one that gives Cusack some prestige as an older man but doesn't date him to the point where he looks his age (44). We approve of this look in general, really. Robert Downey Jr. has led the way with the occasional salt and pepper in his goatee, a nice mixture of party boy and respectable veteran and Cusak really pulls off the look nicely here. As the ladies would say, we'd hit it. "The Raven" hits theaters in late 2011. [HuffPo]