Melville House Books

“Brawny Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone, best known for action roles like Rocky and Rambo, is striking a literary tone with a new film about author Edgar Allan Poe,” reports an Agence France Presse wire story. The report says Stallone, who many forget won acclaim for writing the scripts to his first few movies, including the first Rocky movie, is returning to his screenplay writing interests, and actually wrote the script three years ago but was unable to get a studio interested in backing a film about Poe. So, Stallone himself “will produce, finance and distribute the film that he wants Robert Downey Junior to star in as the 19th century American poet and author.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.