Joaquin Phoenix Playing Edgar Allan Poe?

This is some very odd news considering Joaquin Phoenix's behavior recently and the fact that he said he was "retiring from acting". Since the source is also one that I am not familiar with I don't know how solid this news actually is.. but it is definitely intriguing to say the least.

India Times recently spoke with Oscar winning Resul Pookutty in which he said, “I couldn’t be happier because I am doing a period film. It is a very special challenge because I have to recreate the sound textures of New York in 1854. It’s an adaptation of The Beautiful Cigar Girl by Daniel Stashower and based on an eerie real-life experience of author Edgar Allen Poe which happened just months before his death. Joaquin plays Edgar Allen Poe.”

Nothing else is known about the film.. Apparently no director or other stars have been attached. Below however you can read the official synopsis from the book:

On July 28, 1841, the body of Mary Rogers, a twenty-year-old cigar girl, was found floating in the Hudson-and New York's unregulated police force proved incapable of solving the crime. One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Roget."