Harry Melling, who is best known for playing Dudley in the Harry Potter movies, has signed on to play a young Edgar Allan Poe in director Scott Cooper’s upcoming The Pale Blue Eye. Netflix will be releasing the film as Melling joins the previously announced Christian Bale in the cast.
Based on a novel by Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye will follow
the attempt to solve a series of murders that took place in 1830 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Bale will play a veteran detective who investigates the murders, helped by a detail-oriented young cadet who will later become a world famous author, Edgar Allan Poe.
Here’s the description of Bayard’s novel:
At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet’s body swinging from a rope. The next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has removed the dead man’s heart. Augustus Landor—who acquired some renown in his years as a New York City police detective—is called in to discreetly investigate. It’s a baffling case Landor must pursue in secret, for the scandal could do irreparable damage to the fledgling institution. But he finds help from an unexpected ally—a moody, young cadet with a penchant for drink, two volumes of poetry to his name, and a murky past that changes from telling to telling. The strange and haunted Southern poet for whom Landor develops a fatherly affection, is named Edgar Allan Poe.
