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

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Aren't the bloopers and the show's supposed campiness what most fans talk about when describing DS for other people?

Not on this forum.    We might laugh at some of them on occasion (how could you not laugh at some of them?), but they're the least of it when it comes to what we appreciate and celebrate about DS and what we're likely to cite whenever we recommend it to others. And would you want to see a DS film where they fill a room with flies and then completely ignore that they're there? It's certainly not the sort of funny I would like to see...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I personally think that it's Burton's bizarre sense of humor.

I certainly hope so.

Thanks about the info for Eva going blonde. I did not notice that. Was that the most recent interview with MTV?

Yes, the link that's in reply #2022 on page 135. But her comment doesn't appear in the written portion - it's only in the video.

[Taeylor Collins]

Thanks so much MB. If it would have been a snake it would have bit me.  However, I am so excited by watching that.  And it seems that Angelique isn't going to be french.  I am with the general consesuse that she is going to be closer to the Angelique during the Leviathan period. Perhaps, she is already established in Collinsport and has lived for years never dying?  The possibilities are endless. I for one am getting more and more excited that it seems this DS is going to shy away from things previously done.  YAY!!!!!!!!

[quentincollins]

I've read comments that it's hoped that the new DS movie will spawn a franchise of sequels. DS has a rich history ripe for sequels, prequels and sideways trips.
I hope that all this talk of funny will be in the vein of Oscar Wilde-type witty dialogue. Humor can still be intelligent and thought provoking, we're just not used to seeing that in modern movies.
DS never intentionally went for the bloopers, the ones that happened were normal part of live daytime television. I really don't expect this mutli-million dollar film to have obvious bloopers all over the place.

[Gothick]

Several of us were upset when MPI was originally editing out the bloopers from the DS DVDs.  The reason for this is that the bloopers *are* a part of the series history.  I at least prefer to have my DS as it was meant to be seen at the time of the original broadcast.

Now we have Star Trek and Dr Who classic episodes being re-upholstered with glitzy new CGI FX.  I wonder how long it will be before the cute Bil Baird bat puppets get replaced by CGI bats in the next upgrade/release of DS on whatever format proves to catch a major consumer wave in, say, 2020. 

To deliberately introduce bloopers into a glossy, big budget feature film as some kind of weird tribute to the original series--that would take a really perverted kind of brain to see the point in such an exercise.

G.

[arashi]

Didn't MPI contract out the cleaning up of the masters for DVD to another company and it was they who started removing the bloopers? Once MPI caught on I think they told them to stop. But watching the DVDs there are certain bloopers I remember that are cut out. Thank God for the blooper reel. (Seriously, they could make a whole other DVD with ones they left out.)

I remember marveling at one particularly bad week they had in the 1840 storyline. Boommikes and stagehands galore!



When I personally recommend DS to people it is for the characters, the supernatural elements and the super addictive storylines. I never have, nor ever will, love a show like I do DS!

[Taeylor Collins]

I don't want to get off point but I like the new CGI in the original TREK. Reason being is it's CGI that looks like it could have been made in that time period. It isn't so perfect and lush that it doesn't fit in. They just tweak it. It isn't over the top and doesn't lend itself to this era it lends itself to that era. It didn't look foreign and blended seamlessly with the original film. That is how I feel about it. I was against it until I saw it.

I seriously doubt DS will ever have new FX put in. It's video tape and not film so the two wouldn't work together. I just can't see that happening. Plus we have also already determined it can't be put on Blu Ray and look any better.  I think the current sets we have will probably be produced again if there is demand.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I can honestly say that I've never noticed those boom mikes or that stagehand. Some people may ask, "Are you BLIND?!"    But I don't really pay attention to the periphery of the scenes because my attention is always squarely on the characters. (Though there's also the fact that today's TVs/monitors show more of the frames than we ever used to see on cathode ray tube TVs/monitors. So maybe if I rewatched the eps, I would notice.  )

But getting back on topic - sort of:

I did notice a potential conflict. Eva Green is shooting Arbitrage in the U.S. in mid April according to myentertainmentworld website.

According to the following article, Green has dropped out of Arbitrage because of her commitment to the Depp/DS film: Brit Marling Joins "Arbitrage," "Breaking"

"Marling will likely takeover the role of an art dealer and mistress to the magnate which was vacated by actress Eva Green due to her "Dark Shadows" commitments."

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well not only will the film have an animatic artist, I see where IMDb is now listing Roy Halfpenny as the film's prop model maker. Though neither position comes as a surprise with a film of this type...

[borgosi]

I guess I'm a bit of a purest, no make that I'm alot purest, I think a work of art, be it film, video, music, book, or painting should be left as the creator left it when he/she was finished with it.

One could add color to the Universal classics, or clean up the edges in Harryhausen's movies, or add sound to silent fims, or any number of other things to make the movies pop to draw in new fans, or update them.

No matter the movie, book, song, painting or whatever....I say leave it alone.

That doesn't mean that I'm against a remake of a movie or a band covering a classic song. But leave the original alone.

[jimbo]

Eva Green made the right decision. Thanks for the follow up MB.
Well we just lost another source of information. Schultz and Wiremu (Multidyer on Twitter) posted this comment today: "Well we have had to sign a confidentiality agreement so no Dark Shadow leaks or tweets on the subject! Sorry to disapoint all those fansAb".

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Schultz and Wiremu (Multidyer on Twitter) posted this comment today: "Well we have had to sign a confidentiality agreement..."

Well, no surprise there. As I've said before, I figure the main reason we're not getting more info about the film than we are is because people have been legally bound not to say anything. I suppose we've been lucky to get what little we have gotten - even if some of it has been seemingly conflicting and a whole lot of it has had us wracking our brains trying to make sense of it. But like I've also said, Burton wouldn't want it any other way...

[Taeylor Collins]

I for one am glad the information is not coming out. I maintain that spoilers have ruined the suspense of movies and especially television.  This is my true feeling so don't agree.  However, you can go look at a spoiler and say eh that don't sound good. Before the net, if you loved a show you were there in front of the TV watching it weekly and not knowing what to expect!  I personally gave up spoilers about four years ago and enjoy my TV show much better now.  I am hoping I can stay away from most stuff besides a synopsis or something. It's going to be very hard though....

As for Eva, she is my favorite so far. I just like her in interviews. She seems like a groovy gal...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Don't get me wrong - I don't like spoilers either (though I suppose the fact that the forum has a spoiler feature has clued most people into the fact that neither Midnite or I like to see anything about any of the already existing versions of DS ruined for new fans that come along ) and I wouldn't want to know major plot points. As I've posted before, save for the very end of hoDS, everything was known about that film long before it was released. Photos of crucial scenes were published and plot points were revealed readily. For example, the very first published article about hoDS featured a photo of vampire Carolyn bearing her fangs! And all that was over 40 years ago, so one can't even just blame the Internet.

That being said, though, I would love to at least know the basics about the Depp/DS film. Things like Gothic love story or no? Waitress or governess? Which characters (other than the ones we've already heard about) will be featured? Those sorts of things. But on the other hand there are many things I don't want to know. Like who betrays who. Who gets killed. Who becomes a vampire (if anyone does). None of that sort of thing. And in that respect I'm very happy to have my suspicion that people are having to sign confidentiality agreements confirmed. I much prefer that all juicy plot points remain a secret until we each get the chance to see the film for ourselves.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

The trailers for HODS were absolutely ridiculous with the amount of stuff they revealed.  I didn't see the trailers til after seeing the film, but still...  I would have been severely disappointed had I seen the trailers before watching the movie.  NBC did it right with the primetime series... 

[spoiler]They showed several main characters with fangs in a promo.  It was a dream in the episode, so it really threw us for a loop.[/spoiler]

I hope the trailers for Shadows are long enough to give us as much information as we need without spoiling anything.  There's a right way to do a trailer.  I hope they get it right with this one.