Forget John Cusack, Harry Potter’s Harry Melling is your new Edgar Allan Poe
Scott Cooper's upcoming The Pale Blue Eyes sees Edgar Allan Poe doing what he does best: Solving mysteries.
Film News Harry Melling
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.
52 Comments
Oh that’s great casting! With the facial hair and some styling, he could be a close match.
I kind of tilted my head looking at the comparison photo and he’s rather on point, must say.
“I always wanted to put Edger Allen Poe in a headlock!!”I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen that episode, and it still makes me laugh just as hard as the first time.“Oh, I’ve done it again…” (Poe’s head stuck between stair rails.)I really want to know what drugs Doc and Jackson were on when they wrote that episode. Because I would like some.
That thing is like a pumpkin!
That episode is when I really started enjoying that show, which now is definitely in my top-5 favorite shows of all time
Millenial John Cusack……what?
Gotta admit, I never realized that the nerd-mensch from Queens Gambit was also old Duddikins. Looking at him now I have to wonder if he hit a growth spurt and completely slimmed down in his early teens (the way the guy who played Neville did) and did his parents then have to fatten him up so he could continue with the role of Dudley after he’d lost his childhood huskiness?
He also played one of the main characters in the most depressing sequence in “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”.
Matt, right … wasn’t he the Matt
I prefer to think of it as “haunting”.
Me neither! His face is so peculiar it makes it even more disturbing.
If Marvel ever casts The Leader, he’ll be on a short list.
Melling is on record as saying he started running and hitting the gym in his late teens/early 20s, and had to wear a fat suit to play Dudley in the final films.
To be fair, he was only in “…Deathly Hallows, Part 1″ for, like, 30 seconds, though there is another one minute of outtakes on the DVD, I think.
I’m pretty sure John Cusack is either a really young Boomer or an older Gen-X guy… though Gen-X seems to have been absorbed in the great ongoing Millenial vs. Boomer cultural battle.
Cusack like me, a 1.0 ver Gen X
This Poe had BETTER be an absolute dick.To date, the closest we’ve gotten to an actual depiction was the ghost in South Park.
Cusack played Poe in The Raven … and that kind of made sense
I mean he lived in the Bronx, so that’s kind of a given.
And Baltimore. And Boston. So yeah, the asshole pedigree is strong.Seriously though, track down his letters, if you haven’t. Very erudite versions of “All y’all Boston writers are fuckin’ hacks who ain’t fit ta sniff my codpiece, ya jagoffs.”
The only way this investigation could live up to the standards of Poe would be if it turned out the culprit was an orangutan.
John Cusack is great, but how is he the “millennial Poe?” The guy is 54!
Came here to say the same… he’s more like older Gen-X, right? I feel like Gen-X has almost been absorbed/forgotten in the whole Boomers vs. Millennials thing.
I assume it was a joke
Gen Xers have proved so insignificant we’re dropping them from the equation.
It’s not like we’re going to put up a fight to be noticed.
Well, the movie they are referencing came out in 2011, when most millennials were either still young adults or teens. More importantly, gen Z would have been children then, not the target demo. I don’t think he was saying anything about John Cusack himself.
Yeah. John Cusack is the quintessential Gen X actor.
“Forget John Cusack…” How could anyone forget a performance in a movie that doesn’t exist?
That movie was not good.
Edgar Allan Poe doing what he does best: Solving mysteries fucking his 13 year old cousin
AND he married a 15 year old girl shortly before his death (Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton). They were probably still going by European consent back then.
Did you get that from the wall of Matt Gaetz’s office?
He and the MyPillow guy are selling bed sheets with this design. LOL!
Hey, that’s not fair.Poe was also an excellent at drinking, laudanum, and dying of the TB he contracted from fucking his 13-year old cousin.
No, no, no he died from voter fraud!
13-year-old cousin? Goodness gracious.
Are we moving back to the old style Hollywood where certain studios have actors on contract? He seems to crop up almost exclusively in Netflix things.
jeesuz, if Melling can make it in Hollywood then I definitely still gotta shot … I lack the facial symmetry, I got the misaligned eyes, just missing those jug ears but I’m sure my other deficiencies are truly marketable
(or the Ravenous as we prefer to be called)
That’s uncanny how fitting he looks, considering he has narrow eyes (as opposed to Poe’s wide ones), same for the chin.
Where is John Cusack anyway? Did he quit?
He’s spent the last 4 years trolling Trump on Twitter.
More like Edgar Allan Forehead.
Is he OK?
They should have called the movie Night Pain.
[whispers] Little Bits
Forget Poe. This guy should be starring in a remake of Eraserhead.
HEY AVC!!! FIX THE DAMN COMMENTING. FIGURE IT OUT. YOU’RE GONNA SEE THIS A LOT UNTIL YOU DO.