The producer of DOOMSDAY and THE STRANGERS speaks about his latest project, THE RAVEN, which stars John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe in a fictionalized account of the last five days of the writer’s life as he helps investigate a serial killer who’s murdering people in manners that mimic the author’s work.

Screen Daily spoke with Evans about the project, which is now in post-production. Directed by James McTeigue, THE RAVEN stars Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve and Brendan Gleeson.

“Historically what happened was Poe had disappeared, then turned up on a park bench in someone else’s clothes, fell into a coma and died,” says Evans. “We’re playing with the historical happenstance of what could have happened in those missing days.”

Even though THE RAVEN takes place in Baltimore, the filmmakers chose to shoot elsewhere. “It’s hard to replicate 1849 Baltimore in Baltimore,” Evans says. “It became apparent that we’d have to create our own vision of the city. James was trying to show Baltimore through Poe’s eyes, which is a darker, macabre vision of the city. That gave us some creative latitude to look domestically and internationally for a location that would allow us to get as much money on the screen as possible.”

The eventual solution was to split the shoot between Hungary and Serbia. “We put them together and got good crews, stages and the look and feel that we wanted,” Evans remarks. “And most importantly, the price was going to be right.” 

Look for more coverage of THE RAVEN, which Relativity releases January 13, 2012.

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