We’ve been provided with four clips and almost four minutes of behind-the-scenes-footage from director James McTeigue’s (V for Vendetta) thriller The Raven to share with our readers.  The film stars John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe, and follows the author as he teams up with a detective (Luke Evans) in order to catch a killer who is modeling his crimes after Poe’s stories.  It’s certainly an intriguing premise and Cusack isn’t one for phoning it in, so I’m hoping we’re in for a solid thriller with some nice surprises.

Hit the jump to check out the clips and behind-the-scenes footage.  The film also stars Alice Eve, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and Brendan Gleeson. The Raven opens April 27th.

The Raven has the unenviable task of drawing audience’s attention (and dollars) away from this year’s slate of big action movies. Luckily for the Gothic murder mystery inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, April looks to be one of the weaker months for this year’s box office. However, it will only have about one week to rake in the cash until a little movie called The Avengers comes out. Until then, we have a host of new images from The Raven featuring John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans, Bredan Gleeson and Oliver Jackson-Cohen in various shades of Gothic black. The James McTeigue thriller opens April 27th. Hit the jump to see the images.

In this week’s poster round up, we’ve got a nice selection of advertising from various genres of films. There’s sure to be something you like in the mix. Here’s what we’ve got:

• A graffiti banner from the viral site of Men in Black 3.
• Two stylish posters from John Cusack-starrer, The Raven.
• An in-your-face poster of Jason Statham for his upcoming actioner, Safe.
• Finally, a dude-centric wide shot of the gents from What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

Hit the jump to see the posters and for more on each film.

The first trailer for James McTeigue’s The Raven has gone online.  The story takes place in 1840s Baltimore where a series of grisly murders appear to have been inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack).  Poe and a detective (Luke Evans) must team up to find the killer before he takes out the woman Poe loves.  While I think the premise is intriguing and I’m always up for a crime thriller that pulls the setting out of the modern day, this trailer comes off like “Hey, remember From Hell?  Let’s try that again.”  Hopefully McTeigue’s film will play far better than the unfortunate adaptation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel.

Hit the jump for the trailer.  The film also stars Alice Eve, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and Brendan Gleeson.  The Raven opens March 9, 2012.

Two upcoming Relativity Media films may not have titles, but they now have release dates.  First up, James McTeigue’s Untitled Raven Project (previously titled The Raven) will open on March 9, 2012.  Per the press release, “The film is a gritty thriller in which Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans) to hunt down a mad serial killer who’s using Poe’s own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders.”  The untitled movie also stars Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

Relativity has also set the date for the Untitled Farrelly/Wessler Comedy that has an absolutely ridiculous cast starring in a series of interconnected stories.  Just some of the names on board include Johnny Knoxville, Gerard Butler, Anna Faris, Seann Hugh Jackman, Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, Halle Berry, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet, Terrence Howard, Liev Schreiber, Elizabeth Banks, Justin Long, Kristen Bell, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Stephen Merchant.  Hit the jump for the full press release.

Fox is looking for actors who could play our 16th President if our 16th President hunted vampires in his spare time.  Deadline reports that Fox is screen testing the following actors for the role of young Abe Lincoln in Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: Adrien Brody, Timothy Olyphant, Josh Lucas, James D’Arcy (Into the Storm), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Faster), and Benjamin Walker (Flags of Our Fathers).  If Brody gets the gig, I hope he brings his cheesy Predators voice to the role.

For those not familiar with the project, Bekmambetov’s 3D adaptation is based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote the screenplay) with Tim Burton on board as a producer.  The story imagines that Abraham Lincoln had a secret journal that chronicled his secret life as a vampire hunter avenging his mother’s death. Hit the jump for a synopsis of the novel.  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is slated for June 22, 2012.

Dwayne Johnson is an actor who seemed destined for action-star greatness.  When Arnold Schwarzenegger turns to Johnson in The Rundown and says “Have fun,” it was a passing of the torch.  But that light seems to have diminished as Johnson has, much to the chagrin of his fans, chosen family fare that doesn’t really encourage the bloody mayhem someone of Johnson’s physique and charisma could deliver.  As if to answer all those who were unhappy with films like The Game Plan and Tooth Fairy, in the first five minutes Faster has Johnson get out of prison, drive a badass Chevelle, and shoot a guy in the head.  The film then struggles to keep the remaining 90 minutes interesting, going so far as to introduce a distracting antagonist whose only purpose is to provide brief action scenes.  Weighed down further by vague notions of sin and salvation, Faster is a surprisingly joyless affair that still manages to show Johnson’s dramatic range, but replaces his charismatic grin with deep sorrow.

With Dwayne Johnson’s Faster hitting theaters next week, CBS Films has provided us with 4 clips from Johnson’s return to kicking ass. While I’m under embargo from saying too much, I don’t think they’ll mind if I tell you Faster is exactly what I hoped it’d be:  a lean, violent, revenge flick that shows what Johnson can do when he’s not making family films.

What I especially like about the movie is that it never wastes time trying to give Johnson’s character too much backstory, or trying to make him out to be a saint.  The movie starts with him leaving jail and almost immediately he kills someone.  That’s Faster.  If you’re into watching Johnson going around extracting revenge on the folks that killed his brother, you’ll like this film.  Hit the jump to watch 4 clips.

While most of you don’t know who Oliver Jackson-Cohen is, if you see Dwayne Johnson’s Faster,  that’ll change.  That’s because Jackson-Cohen plays a bi-polar, very well dressed, killer who is after Johnson’s character.  If you saw the green or red band trailers, you might have seen Johnson firing his gun at him in the hallway.  I know this because I watched the scene get filmed earlier this year.

Anyway, while on set, during a break in filming, I was able to participate in a group interview with Jackson-Cohen.  He talked to us about his character, preparing for the role, working with Maggie Grace, Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton, as well as how he got the part and what it was like to work on his first big Hollywood movie.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to what he had to say:

While director George Tillman Jr. was incredibly busy when I got to visit the set of Faster earlier this year, towards the end of the afternoon, during some down time, we managed to get in a few questions about Dwayne Johnson’s return to kicking ass.

What I liked about Tillman Jr. was that he told us Faster reminded him of a 70′s action film (which he’s a big fan of).  He told us, “I just felt like this movie was a throwback to those films in the Seventies… like with Steve McQueen.”

The other thing that made me happy was that Faster wouldn’t be filled with CGI cars and fake driving. Tillman told us, “we doin’ it all, there’s no visual effects, it’s us.” And if they didn’t get a shot they needed, “we gotta come back and get it next week.  I think that’s what makes it interesting.  The closest recently I think is what (Quentin) Tarantino did with Death Proof. “  Much more after the jump:

Two new images have hit this net this morning.  One is from  director Nimród Antal’s Predators, and the other is Dwayne Johnson in CBS Films Faster.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I did set visits on both of these films and both look cool.  What’s great about Predators is 20th Century Fox gave producer Robert Rodriguez the creative freedom to make a cool movie and based on what I saw…he did just that.  And regarding Faster, it’s Johnson’s return to action as he plays a guy trying to get revenge on the people that killed his brother.  If you’ve been waiting to see Johnson fuck people up, you’ll be able to later this year.  Hit the jump to check out the new images:

Whenever someone talks about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson around me…I always wonder why he isn’t the biggest action star on the planet.  After all, he’s got everything an action star needs like the physique and charisma, but for some reason, after making the awesome movie The Rundown with director Peter Berg, he never followed it up with another kick ass action film.  Instead, he worked in the family friendly genre and made The Game Plan, Race to Witch Mountain, Tooth Fairy and he did a voice in Planet 51.  While that’s probably a smart long term career move, for people that want to see Dwayne Johnson kicking ass, we’ve been waiting years to see him punch someone else in the face.

Thankfully, the wait is over, as Johnson is currently filming CBS Films Faster, and it features him trying to get revenge on the four people that killed his brother.  Hit the jump for more:

THR reports that Moon Bloodgood and British actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen have joined George Tillman Jr.’s (Notorious) upcoming action-thriller Faster, starring Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Maggie Grace, with Salma Hayek in negotiations to co-star.  Faster centers on an ex-con (Johnson) who is pursued by cops and killers as he attempts to avenge his brother’s death.  Bloodgood would play the ex-con’s girlfriend while Jackson-Cohen would play “a self-made millionaire who kills for fun,” which is redundant because I think that’s what all self-made millionaires do.

According to Screen Daily, Kevin Spacey has come on board Dayyan Eng’s China-based dark comedy Inseparable.  The film, which will be shot in both Mandarin and English, is about a troubled young man (Daniel Wu) who is befriended by a mysterious American expatriate (Spacey) who changes his life. Beibi Gong will co-star as the young man’s investigative reporter wife.  The film is scheduled to begin filming in southern China this month.