The odds are long that anyone in Hollywood will ever make a decent Edgar Allan Poe biopic. Big screen depictions of the troubled scribe have habitually favored the image of Poe as a “mad genius,” and rather freely combined the author with any number of his celebrated literary creations. But despite the vivid strain of intrigue and macabre that runs through his work, Poe’s life was basically that of a serially-employed writer with a drinking problem and a tragic love life. Although not without a certain boozy romance, it’s got nothing on The Cask of Amontillado. So it should come as no surprise that the latest Poe-pic is no more interested in historical fact than its cinematic forebears. The Raven, which THR reports will star John Cusak, is a thriller in which Poe spends his final days chasing after a serial killer. No biopic at all, it sounds far more akin to, say, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Barf.

For two decades, John Cusack has been everything to everyone. A lovestruck teen in Say Anything, a hopelessly romantic hitman in Grosse Pointe Blank, and strung-out puppeteer in Being John Malkovich. His latest role has him as another relatable man caught in extraordinary circumstances, as a part-time limo driver outrunning the end of the world in Roland Emmerich's disaster opus 2012, out Friday. We sat down with the star to talk about Roland Emmerich's mad genius, and what it's like being the Everyman.

I like Say Anything, though I don’t have the sustained, ooey-gooey affection for it that some do. I think I first saw it at a difficult age where I was apt to misprize any film that wasn’t either a) a bold formal experiment, or b) directed by Robert Bresson. That said, the film’s 20th anniversary -- which Fox is commemorating with a deluxe Blu-Ray out next week -- is sufficient incentive for me to want to revisit it. It was Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut after all, as well as John Cusack’s last teen role (The Grifters was just around the corner), and features what I’m sure Lili Taylor hates to hear is still her most memorable screen role to date.