After nabbing a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role in The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner’s career has shifted into high gear. According to the New York Times, Renner will co-star alongside Ewan McGregor in The Raven, to be directed by James McTeigue (V for vendetta, Ninja Assasin). The thriller is a fictionalized account of the last 5 days of Edgar Allen Poe’s life.
“It’s basically set in 1850s Baltimore. The logline would be: an amalgamation of Poe’s stories crossed with Se7en. It’s about a serial killer loose in 1850s Baltimore”, explains McTeigue.
There is no word on what character Renner will play in the film, but he is most likely to play Poe.
Renner is also in talks to play the lead role in Peter Berg’s Battleship, a film based on the classic Hasbro board game, although that may not come to pass. The New York Times reports that Renner has taken “no fewer than five meetings” regarding another film. Sources suspect that the other project is Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing a charismatic, L. Ron Hubbard-type of religious leader. Shooting on both Battleship and The Master are scheduled for this summer, so it looks like Renner will have to choose carefully.