Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

This certainly sounds very promising:

bobby_coello Bobby Coello
Big article in #empire this week about #darkshadows @PinewoodStudios
17 minutes ago

Hopefully someone will share scans of it sooner rather than later...

224 days 9 hours 12 minutes 11 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Apparently there are some interesting things in the Empire article, according to posters on IMDB.  If you love the pre-Barnabas storyline, chances are, I think you're going to enjoy what you read in the article.  I don't consider these spoilers, but I am putting them in the box anyway.[spoiler]There's a rival cannery.[/spoiler]  And, as I suggested a long time ago Christopher Lee plays a character who sounds very similar to[spoiler]Bill Malloy.[/spoiler]  I will have to go find the magazine and read the article for myself... at some point. 

[Gothick]

Wow.  haven't any of the Depp fan sites posted scans of that article yet? What is taking them so long??

I do wonder whether the fact that it is almost Oct. now and they are STILL shooting will result in a re-scheduling of the release date.  Given that MB confirmed my speculations on the length of post-production for the movie... based on something or other he had read.

G.

[PennyDreadful]

I was hoping to find scans of the full article but no dice yet.  There's a magazine store nearby.  I'll have to stop in this weekend to see if I can find it. 

[madscntst]

Gothick, I really hope that the filming going over time won't affect the release date.  I think that Burton's films do sometimes go slightly over time, and there is a lot of time left before the release date.  As some of you may remember, Tim seemed in a panic about getting Alice In Wonderland done on time, but that film had 3D and a LOT of CGI which must've required a lot of hands-on post production.  I think I read on the IMDB boards that this Empire article claims that there is very little CGI in DS, which makes me think it may be more like Sweeney Todd.  Sweeney Todd filmed through May or June but yet was still able to come out before Christmas.  On the other hand, who really knows if the two films are comparable.  At any rate, I'll try not to worry about this yet 

I'm trying to keep track of all the tweets, but has there been any word on Thomas MacDonnell?  I wonder if he will be starting now.

[Brandon Collins]

I very much like these new photos, especially the one of Pfeiffer. Her pursed lips and eyes say it all.

As far as Depp as Barnabas, I think he's going to work out wonderfully. The cast photo was a bit underwhelming because he did look so child-like, as others have said, but this newly released photo with the bloodied hands shows the promise of how scary he could be in the character. The thing about Frid's Barnabas that always got me was that he seemed worldly and was intriguing. He drew you with his charm and you did fall in love with him, as someone else said, because of his vulnerability and inherent "good nature" as it were. I never looked at Barnabas as someone I would push through a crowd to jump on top off, but more as someone I would like to spend time with in conversation. As long as Depp captures this aspect of the character, anyone with a bit of romanticism will instantly be attracted.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Here are the scans - finally.

Empire Magazine Nov issue Scans ~ Dark Shadows article

Thanks to JOHNNYDEPPZONE!  

223 days 13 hours 3 minutes 18 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Gothick]

Brandon baby, the idea of Barnabas Collins in a mosh pit ... whoa.  I am trying really, really hard not to laugh out loud now given that I am in the office and this laugh could be a regular war whoop.  Thanks for that.  This week has been shredding.

I was thinking about this project last night and this vision of Tim & Johnny having DS night every week for years... I was considering the bits and pieces that have been shared and I think that in some ways, these two know more about the minutiae of MANY of the episodes than anyone else who has ever worked on a film or remake of the series.  Remember the time the writers had completely written themselves into a corner late in the original series, and somebody was sent outside to bring in a couple of the diehard fans to explain where they were in the story and what had been going on over the past few months?  That's Depp & Burton... or so it would seem ... given these hints we've been given about stuff we're going to see in this.

G.

[Nancy]

Believe me, as someone who handled Frid's fan mail for many years and accompanied him on most of his pro gigs for over a decade, there are plenty of women who would chew through steel to jump on top of him.  The intensity of that drive, from women who have what seems to be challenging careers and a great home life, told me a long time ago there is something quite mysterious about how  the Fridster comes across on camera, and in person.  Call it charisma, I guess.  I think my mother described the appeal well after meeting him at my 40th birthday party - "He's not what you call traditionally handsome but he has an interesting face, eyes and overall attractiveness to him."  I'm not quoting her verbatim but that was the gist of her comment.  She didn't get DS at all but did attend a few of Frid's one man shows and thought he had a tremendous presence and his voice was exceptional.  Many of these components combine to create an appeal that is evidenced by the character and actor's popularity among DS fans.

This is a off-topic a bit but I have to relay a funny story (though it was not funny to me at the time).  Back around 2001 when JF was doing some charity shows I was producing, we had to sneak around our hotel to get to my car in order to avoid several very persistent fans.  Someone wound up seeing us in the parking lot and they all came running.  We got in the car and I sped away.  I was really ticked (and tired) at having to sneak around like that just to be able to go home and I practically shouted at him "What the hell is it about you that turns people into lunatics?!"  Frid's response - "Damned if I know.  I've never understood it."  It's not that he didn't appreciate it: he didn't ever understand what it was about him that caused fans to react that way.

[Gothick]

Warning Warning Warning:  Definite SPOILERS in that Empire mag article.  My jaw dropped when I read one particular detail.  There is also more info given about the Collinwood sets and there will definitely be some touches of Burton's trademark dollhouse grotesquerie at this Collinwood.

Seth the screenwriter describes the movie as a supernatural gothic soap-opera action-comedy.  Humor is mentioned a couple of times.  I still maintain that there WAS intentional humor woven into the original series--what else do you call Nicholas Blair leering at Julia and telling her, with a poker face, that she's been reading too many Gothic novels?  But I'm sure the humor of this version will have the air of that trademark Tim Burton crazed whimsy about it.  Brace yourselves.

G.

[Nancy]

If done with a steady hand, I can see the description in my head working on screen.  Yes, there were natural humorous moments in the series - when Willie wasn't quite dead Barnabas worried he would recover and write a memoir of his life at Collinwood, Julia's zings at Carolyn and even Barnabas - many humorous things that were character driven and natural.

If Burton continues to focus on the soul of DS, it will come all come out okay, his trademarks notwithstanding.

Seth the screenwriter describes the movie as a supernatural gothic soap-opera action-comedy.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

My jaw dropped when I read one particular detail.

Really? I can't say anything I read in the article was shocking. And I don't mean that in a sense that it's not shocking Burton would do it - but simply that I didn't think anything was shocking or apart from what could be in a DS film and it still be a DS film.

If done with a steady hand, I can see the description in my head working on screen.

Definitely.

Yes, there were natural humorous moments in the series - when Willie wasn't quite dead Barnabas worried he would recover and write a memoir of his life at Collinwood, Julia's zings at Carolyn and even Barnabas - many humorous things that were character driven and natural.

Exactly. And I love where the article quotes Richard Zanuck as saying that the film is "mostly interaction between characters and that's where the humour and the story comes from." That almost exactly what the film's editor/executive producer Chris Lebenzon said back in February at the ACE Eddie Awards when he said "It’s a relationship movie. It’s a lot of interaction of characters, from past and present." And a story that's character driven, with humor that comes out of character and character interaction, as has always been the case with DS, can't ever be a bad thing - particularly when it combines all the other touches the article describes as being a part of the film - and you have something that sounds very much like DS to me.

223 days 12 hours 14 minutes 22 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Another addition to IMDb:

Ian Floodgate ... Collins Canning Worker (uncredited)

And because of what we learn in the Empire article, I'm wondering if Ashley Bernard's "Canning Company Employee"[spoiler]works for Angelique's rival cannery and not the Collinses as we first suspected?[/spoiler]

223 days 12 hours 2 minutes 28 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[michael c]

how un-CANNY!

[spoiler]i was just saying to myself this morning: i'll bet angelique owns that other, rival cannery. and lo and behold. we've been given clues. she's already well established in collinsport when the story begins. she's out to destroy liz. certainly her power-pantsuit in the cast photograph screams "lady executrix". there's just not going to be enough time in a two hour movie to have a cannery subplot that doesn't involve barnabas and the rest of the leads.[/spoiler]

i knew it.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I had someone ask me the other day if I thought that because the shoot is going on for so long and there seems to be several different subplots, if Burton isn't actually filming enough for two films, and the release might be like what director Richard Lester did back in the mid-'70s when he broke up his version of The Three Musketeers into The Three Musketeers: The Queen's Diamonds and The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge. I said I didn't know about that, though it would certainly be an interesting turn - but what I could see is that Burton might be planning to put together around a 2 hour release print of the film but then put out a longer Director's Cut on DVD/Blu-ray. I suppose we'll see...

223 days 11 hours 30 minutes 22 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!