The first picture featuring John Cusack in the film currently titled “The Raven” has been released by Relativity Media. The film stars John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe, one of American literature’s more morbid and haunted writers. The film is being directed by James McTeigue and will be in theaters March 9, 2012. The picture can be seen below the post.

Here’s the official synopsis of the film:

In this gritty thriller, Edgar Allen Poe (John Cusack, “Being John Malkovich”) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans, “Immortals”) to hunt down a mad serial killer who’s using Poe’s own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders. Directed by James McTeigue (“V for Vendetta”), the film also stars Alice Eve (“Sex and the City 2″), Brendan Gleeson (“In Bruges”) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (“Faster”).

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper—part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story.

Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.

John Cusack in The Raven