E.A. Poe TV pilot: The unkindest cut -- it's set in Boston!

Poe, Poe, Poe -- and po' Baltimore. A forthcoming big-screen thriller starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, called "The Raven," is set in Baltimore but has been filmed in Budapest and Belgrade. Now ABC is shooting a pilot called "Poe" featuring the poet, critic and fiction-writer -- and father of the detective story -- as a mid-19th-century P.I. cracking cases in Boston, where he was born.

Poe had such a contentious relationship with the scribes of his native city that it took until 2009 for Boston to designate "Poe Square" near the writer's birthplace. Even Beantown's mayor, Thomas Menino, had to acknowledge at the dedication that Poe said of Boston, "Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good."

A few years ago, Mark Redfield filmed the independent "Death of Poe" right here in Charm City. Will we ever see a new Poe film set in Baltimore and shot here? It's beginning to seem, "Nevermore."