Rocky Joins Dark Side

Sylvester Stallone is ready to hang up his boxing gloves and embrace the world of literary poetry.

According to Variety, Sly has written a movie entitled Poe, about the troubled life of famed poet Edgar Allan Poe. Nu Image/Millennium Films will finance, produce, and distribute the morbid tale, which Stallone also plans to direct. Poe lead a tragic life equipped with craziness, depression, and drugs. Naturally, Stallone is hoping to get Robert Downey Jr to play the lead role.

Arguably best known for his eerie poem "The Raven" which made the word 'nevermore' seem cool, Poe is considered the master of gothic horror tales in the 1800's. Stallone's screenplay has been completed since 2002, but final details came together this past week. Recently, he worked as executive producer on the boxing reality show "The Contender", which cost over $2 million an episode to create, but barely scraped together an audience. Perhaps a change of pace would do him well.

Poe will begin filming this fall in Europe.