It's official: Dark Shadows returns as a film with Johnny Depp

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Hmmm...  This is really interesting.  I guess the best thing we can hope for, in terms of clarification, is an upcoming Variety article to say something like this:  "Heathcote, who will be playing a waitress named Vicki Winters..."  Until then, I guess we won't really know for sure. 

[LOOKE300]

i wonder if there going to make david a teenager and thats why viki,is not going going to be a governess i hope not.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Hmmm...  This is really interesting.

An interesting question is why the info on IMDb needs to be approved before it's actually posted? It could be possible that it's merely to check for obscenity because, quite obviously, it isn't to check for accuracy. If accuracy was an issue, things like Kirsten Van Wagner's name being posted as Vicki would have never happened...

[hornet]

i know we're still speculating(aren't we?)but vicki as a waitress is kind of a bummer. the whole "jane eyre" component of the gothic governess is elemental to the DS mythology. it was pivotal to dan curtis' conception of this whole story.

My sentiments EXACTLY! I can't imagine Dark Shadows without wide-eyed governess Victoria Winters coming to the mysterious house known as Collinwood. It was the very genesis of this great saga, has been used in every previous version (with Maggie substituting for Victoria in HODS), and is just as integral to making Dark Shadows feel like Dark Shadows as Barnabas' arrival is.  Anything less will be much more than a bummer for me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they stay true to Dan Curtis' vision.

[michael c]

just a thought but are we all giving the 'variety' reportage too much credence?

i mean DOZENS of other websites are referencing the victoria character as a "governess" not a "waitress" but we're all spinning out on this one description.

i realize that 'variety' is a highly respected trade news outlet but are all of these other stories and reports wrong?

[Zahir]

I'm going to mention this again, simply because 'tis something of a bee in my bonnet.  My own hope is that Barnabas does not meet a genuine reincarnation of Josette.  It is a cliche, one that the original series avoided until the 1897 storyline, and it takes away from a lot of the drama I loved in the original introduction of Barnabas.

Remember--neither Maggie nor Vicki were reincarnations of Josette, although the former certainly resembled her.  Frankly that was a better plot, and I soooooo hope the new film avoids retreading that well-worn groove.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

So far no one seems to have used that particular R-word with regard to Bella Heathcote's chacter in the Depp/DS film. The only R-word I've seen is "resembles," as in Heathcote will play a waitress who resembles Barn's long-lost love.

And speaking about the waitress issue, there are also many Web sites that are reporting that Heathcote will play a waitress in the Depp/DS film (I gave up counting after the 7th page of listings came up in Google, which means there are more than 60 out there). The thing about the waitress vs. governess issue, though, is that practically every, if not every report on the Internet regarding Heathcote's casting can be traced back to just two Web sites: the deadline.com site or Variety's site. If a site cites deadline.com as their source, Heathcote will play governess Victoria Winters. But if they cite Variety, then Heathcote will play an unnamed waitress. So, unless, like Maggie on the original series, the character is both a waitress and a governess at various points in the script, many Web sites will turn out to to have gotten it wrong depending out which source they decided to put their trust in. And unfortunately we're not going to know which is which until some point down the road when someone (quite possibly Marcy Robin of ShadowGram) finally clues us in. Though it's certainly also fun to try to read the tea leaves as different things pop up...

[jimbo]

According to Atwood, Costume Designer she said several things on the video that Johnny was fitted today, the script is funny and the movie may be campy.
http://thedishrag.com/2011/02/johnny-depp-is-already-trying-on-his-dark-shadows-costumes/

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The Internet giveth (Chris Lebenzon's remarks the other day) and the Internet taketh away (Colleen Atwood's remark's today).

If it was simply a case of that site saying those things, I'd take it with a grain of salt because that's a tabloid site. But it's hard to ignore seeing Atwood say such things in her own words and in person...

[jimbo]

I think we have to be concerned again about the script being described again as funny. Ms. Atwood didn't exactly say that she read the script and she wasn't totally sure if the movie will be campy. Perhaps she was told the script was funny. On the other hand she may have read it and thought the script was indeed funny which makes her the second DS personnel to state it will be a funny movie. I just don't see it. I also wish they resolved the Bella character issue.

[michael c]

did anyone else notice that this site also had an article describing elizabeth stoddard as barnabas' "sister".

weird!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I did - which just shows their lack of commitment to accuracy. And if the woman who runs the site is the same person who interviewed Atwood in the video, then apparently she couldn't have paid too much attention when she supposedly ran home from school to watch DS or else she would know Liz wasn't Barn's sister. And it's the site's shoddy tabloidy reporting that would otherwise have me doubting what they've written about the film being funny if it wasn't for the video where we get to see and hear Atwood's comments for ourselves...

[Cousin_Barnabas]

"It's gonna be good.  It's really a funny script!"

If she has, in fact, read it, I really don't have any idea what direction they could possibly be taking this story in.  The reports from the various entertainment journals have indicated no such thing - unless we've been reading them wrong.  Willie is a conman.  Heathcote resembles Barnabas's lost love.  Maybe we're just misinterpreting the whole shebang.  I have no idea how all of those elements can add up to be "really funny," but maybe that's because we're used to seeing a serious take on the story, and that is what we are expecting.

If this is the case, I am beginning to believe the commercials for the '91 series more and more...  "Dark Shadows as it was meant to be!"  It might be the closest to a serious cinematic version we'll ever see.  Because, if this is funny, it is not as it was meant to be.  It just shouldn't happen.

Let's hope these reports are wrong.

[Nightfall59]

Didn't someone connected with the film--was it Tim Burton?--say that they were going to deal with Barnabas being a man out of his time? That this time around Barn wouldn't just know about things like telephones, electricity, cars, etc., upon his release into the modern world? If so, perhaps that is the part that is deemed "very funny," and not the overall film? I don't know...just trying to stay a bit optimistic.

[Zahir]

Seems to me like there's plenty of potential for humor without camp, in DS as well as elsewhere.   That quote bothers me not at all.  And while getting a detail wrong about the forty-year-old source material may be (well, is) sloppy, I don't think it deserves to be called "shoddy" or in any sense smacking of tabloids.