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"The Nightmare of Edgar Allan Poe"
No lie. Today's Hollywood Reporter says Jackson will do Poe in a big-budget, indie thriller called The Nightmare of Edgar Allan Poe.
In addition to acting duties, Jackson will executive produce the flick with cohorts Gary L. Pudney and Jim Green. Filming will begin next year in Montreal, according to the Reporter's Robert Osborne.
Poe would mark Jackson's first foray in feature film as a leading man. (Though he lent support as the Scarecrow in the 1978 musical The Wiz and has headlined numerous short and video subjects, including the now-retired Disneyland clip, Captain Eo.)
In Poe, the King of Pop would play the author of such chilling classics as "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." No word on how the soft-spoken star would conjure up a tragic man who died in 1849 at the age of 40—a brief life marked by horror, madness, drugs and obsession.
Singer Michael Jackson is on track for his first movie starring role.
Pop superstar Michael Jackson is about to play hard-drinking writer Edgar Allan Poe in a big-budget independent thriller, according to a report in a US newspaper.
Industry journal The Hollywood Reporter claims the 41-year-old will take the title role in The Nightmare of Edgar Allan Poe, which will start shooting in Montreal late next year.
It said the singer "has been looking a long time for the ideal story in which to take his first starring role".
His only movie appearance before now was in 1978 as a supporting actor in The Wiz, which starred Diana Ross.
Jackson will also be an executive producer on the project with Gary L Pudney and Jim Green. It will be funded with cash from France, Germany and Canada.
Poe, who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, died aged 40 in 1849 after a life of misery and madness, and an obsessive fascination with the supernatural.
He was best known for his poems, short tales and literary criticism.
The Fall of the House of Usher, written in 1839, was to become one of his most famous stories, while 1841's The Murders in the Rue Morgue is sometimes considered to be the first detective story.
Other stories include The Tell-Tale Heart. while The Raven is one of his acclaimed poems.
Poe has never before been the subject of a major movie biography, though a 20th Century Fox film called The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe was made in 1942, and the writer was a character in a 1951 MGM mystery called The Man with a Cloak.
Writer Philip Levin, who came up with the idea for The Nightmare of Edgar Allen Poe, is said to be writing the screenplay, which will cover the week before Poe's death.
The exact cause of Poe's death, in Baltimore, remains a mystery. Five days earlier, he had been found semi-conscious and delirious: a victim of alcohol, heart failure, epilepsy - or a combination of these.
Entertainment Weekly (November 18, 1999)
A $30 million feature about the last week of Edgar Allan Poe’s life starring eccentric pop idol Michael Jackson as the eccentric literary idol? ”They’re the same age, their builds are very similar, and there’s a similar mystique,” says producer Jim Green. ”Michael likes to explore the dark side, and certainly Poe had a lot of dark things in his nature.”
Green and partner Gary Pudney pitched ”The Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe” to Jackson when the singer told them he plans to stop touring after his next album and concentrate on movies. Green hopes to get rolling as soon as the script is done. The film is being financed with European money and has no U.S. deal yet. ”Michael’s popularity in this country has been on the wane,” concedes Green. ”I’m counting on this album to bring him back on top.”
“Sun Sentinel” (November 16, 1999)
Pop star Michael Jackson will star as 19th-century U.S. writer and poet Edgar Allen Poe in a movie to be shot in Canada next year, Canadian movie officials said Monday in Queen City.
"Yes, it is in the air," said Louise Lapointe, spokesman for Montreal's Bureau of Cinema and Television, which attracts movie shootings to the city of 3.5 million.
She said the bureau had not yet been contacted by the movie's producers but it was expected they would begin shooting at the end of next year. "It is still a project but we are expecting the scenario to be sent to us over the next few months," she added.
Lapointe confirmed a report published last week by the Hollywood Reporter newspaper. It stated that Jackson would play Poe (1809-1849) in a big-budget thriller, The Nightmare of Edgar Allan Poe, to be shot in Montreal.