Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!!

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Though to me that scene comes across as possibly Julia thinking she's revealing Barnabas secret to Liz - but little does she know that Liz already knows.

Now that's an interesting concept.  And it would work.  I just can't get over the accent.  It seems so out of place. 

[PennyDreadful]

I am certainly not alone as these new articles reflect.

Believe me, you are not alone.  And thanks for sharing those articles.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

One of the lines that I find the most interesting comes from the examiner.com piece:

"If you don’t know the original show, you’ll surely laugh. If you do know the original soap, you may just weep."

because, while there are exceptions, reactions to the trailer/TV spots from the entertainment media do seem to break just about along those lines with many mainstream entertainment Web sites like Entertainment Weekly and Empire Magazine endorsing the trailer and many horror themed Web sites (Fangoria being a major exception) going into a tizzy. Though as I've long been saying (even before we saw so much an official photo), unfortunately for us, the film wasn't made with original DS fans as its target audience (but then, we'd barely even make a blip at the box office). And Warner Brothers has made it even clearer with the marketing that for the most part they're going after a different type of audience. And who knows, they just may succeed. Only time will tell...

39 days 1 hours 11 minutes 56 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[jimbo]

I personally believe WB is poorly marketing this film if it is truly not a comedy which it seems to be. The SFX people believe the trailer is a mess and may do poorly internationally.  http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/04/01/blogbusters-2012-summer-blockbusters/

[Brandon Collins]

I'm interested to see exactly what ends up in the second trailer, as far as new footage we haven't already seen, since it's just as long as the first trailer is. And how this trailer will be cut and skewed to showcase what the film will be like.

[Richard]

I expect the film will be a big hit with the audience being targeted and with the Depp / Burton fan base. That's all it needs.

Did anyone here see Captain America (2011)? This was a hit film by Marvel Comics new production company arm. It is a period action-adventure set in World War 2 (1942) in which a scrawny young man who wants to serve his country is rejected as 4F by the military. [spoiler] So he submits to a new experiment that weaponizes humans so that they can win in combat. But all the US Army can find for him to do is sell war bonds by making a fool out of him in a "captain America" costume. Gradually, he proves himself in combat, and wins acceptance. There is an emotional arc in his progress, and in believable interaction with other characters. There is an intelligent story at work. Then, after two hours of exposition, his plane goes down, and he is frozen in the Arctic for 70 years. But the movie isn't over yet. There is a brief epilogue, lasting less than twenty minutes, in which his body is recovered and he is revived. As the movie ends he is facing a modern world in Times Square, and with a bright future ahead of him.[/spoiler]

If Tim Burton had directed Captain America -- and if Johnny Depp had starred in it -- they would have reduced the two-hour period action-adventure to a brief prologue of about twenty minutes or so, then turned the film into a full-length farce about how Captain America comes to terms with modern times. Instead of making a classic, standard-setting superhero adventure, they would trivialize it with ridicule. They know how to ridicule. They don't know how to tell a legitimate story. They are preoccupied with their own kinky fetishes and kinky humor, and they think everybody else is the same way. They have enough of a fanbase to reinforce their insulated ego bubble.

The Dan Curtis estate exercised extremely poor judgment in selling the rights to Depp and his crony Burton. I'm very disappointed in the estate.

I expected nothing better from Pierson.


Richard

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The SFX people believe the trailer is a mess and may do poorly internationally.

And yet another split of opinion coming down along the same sort of lines with Empire feeling the film will be huge internationally (as well as domestically in the US) and SFX questioning how it will do internationally. Though SFX is prepared to be wrong... (And BTW, I'm a huge fan of their magazine - especially their vampire issues.)

Though now that we've seen the trailer and TV spots, I'm honestly thinking the fact that DS isn't well known internationally is less than an issue than if the film had been a faithful adaptation. From what we can see so far, anyway, people really needn't be familiar with DS.

39 days 0 hours 33 minutes 46 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[usffan]

I went to see 21 Jump Street this evening. 

[spoiler]Since Johnny Depp was actually in the original (which was not a comedy) and has a cameo in this theatrical version that makes no bones about being a comedy, I think it makes for an interesting juxtaposition with his appearance in Dark Shadows. 

There are a couple of lines of fascinating dialogue where a character talks about them revisiting old projects from the past in part because the powers that be have run out of original ideas and have to resort to rehashing old ideas that didn't quite work the first time.  It's done in reference to police projects, but you can almost see Nick Offerman winking at the camera in acknowledgement of the fact that it's really a reference to remaking old TV shows into movies.[/spoiler]

I was struck by the MIB3 trailer, because the gist of this one is that J has to go back in time to 1969, where it appears the bulk of the action will take place.  In other words, there will be at least 2 movies that deal with a "fish out of water" appearing in the late '60's/early '70's that are coming out this summer.  I suspect there will be many comparisons of the two movies that will analyze which one does a better job.  It's probably fortuitous for WB that Dark Shadows will be coming out a couple of weeks before MIB3. 

[joe integlia]

isnt the 2nd trailer the 1 with alice cooper added? if so i already saw it yesterday before i saw the film, MIRROR, MIRROR.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Really?  They played that ad before MIRROR, MIRROR?  Well... if that doesn't beat all.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The 2nd trailer may end with Alice Cooper like the trailer/TV spot/whatever that was shown during Once Upon a Time, but it can't be the exact same version because that Canadian Web site for Alberta's movie theatres is listing the length of the 2nd trailer as 2 minutes and 25 seconds, yet what was shown during Once Upon a Time was 2 minutes long.

Perhaps what was shown on TV was a cut down version. But we won't know that for sure until we either see the full version or joe tells us what was different from what was shown on TV.    But either way there will be 25 additional seconds. And hopefully at least some of it will be stuff we haven't already seen...

38 days 21 hours 55 minutes 53 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Cousin_Barnabas]

That is true, MB.  I am just surprised that they showed the Alice Cooper version in theaters (assuming it is the same cut we have already seen).  If it's the new cut that Canada has approved, that would be very interesting indeed, as we don't have a version of it online yet. 

[joe integlia]

it looked very similiar to what abc showed but theres no way i could remember or pick out specific differences. im sure it will get posted eventually and picked apart by all of us.

[madscntst]

Thanks to everyone, especially MB, for keeping up with all the various trailers and TV spots. I can't keep up with all the variations!  I don't really follow NCAA basketball these days (Duke fan, which wasn't so good for me this year, lol) but happened to have it on for a short time the other day and was happy to be treated to one of the TV spots. 

I still have somewhat mixed feelings about all this but am adjusting to the tone.  I'm not really a twitter user but I happened to be following the Depp tweets this past weekend because Johnny was performing (on drums!) in LA and I was looking for news.  Nearly all the tweets I saw about the DS trailer were surprisingly positive.  And not all of these seemed to be from Depp/Burton fans- some were just young folks who happened to see it with 21 Jump Street or Hunger Games.  Most people seemed to be liking the character posters, too, though there was an occasional trashing.  It was funny to see that perspective, though I think I've had enough of twitter for a little while

[Midnite]

KLS is really annoyed over the piece and sent a letter to the editor.  She posts extensively on her feelings regarding the article on her FB page.

Thanks, Nancy.  An edited version was published this past weekend in the Sunday LA Times Calendar, and a snap of it was uploaded to her site: http://www.kathrynleighscott.com/?page_id=298
Click the image to enlarge and read the article.

Her unedited letter is on that same blog, posted on Mar. 26.


KLS states that the cameo appearances of the four DS actors are an indication that the producers of the new movie "are not in the least distancing themselves from the series," but since this has been a trend of remakes for quite some time, I'm not seeing it as proof of anything.  But what the article actually said was that the producers weren't encouraging anyone to seek out the original series, which is not the same thing.  And why bring up that she was on the set at the same time as the author?  Doesn't that make her come across as a bit miffed that he did not mention her?

But I do applaud her comment about how Burton's product would look with only 40-year-old production values to work with.