Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!!

[borgosi]

check comingsoon.net they have seven trailers up

[Uncle Roger]

Perhaps we should be grateful that Burton is with HBC instead of Lisa Marie. She probably would have been Angelique but having her as Julia would NOT have worked.

[Gerard]

I daughter says that none of her friends care at all about seeing the DS movie. They says it looks silly.

That's very interesting and somewhat telling about the "target audience."  Of course, I found all the references to 1972 (from lava lamps to Deliverance playing at the local theater and everything else inbetween [how I love that old TV console set and the Carpenters performing on it]) to be not only nostalgic, but funny.  Back then, when we "oldsters" were growing up, those were the times of our lives and we can appreciate (I, and several friends, snuck into Deliverance even though we were under-age), do the teens and tweens of today have any understanding?  I know for a fact they do not.  I've worked as a history teacher for years, and now do it as a substitute teacher (along with being an adaptive aquatics instructor for special needs kids, neither of which jobs pays anything), and I can tell you that teens and tweens are curious in the classroom when I explain what it was like back then, but they consider it "weird" and not worth more than a quick story.  They have no connection with it and don't care about it, unlike we teens in the early seventies who got a kick out of American Graffiti.  We packed the theater for that one and bought the soundtrack record (record? - what's that?) set and had sock-hop-revival dances in our schools.  What once was fascinated us.  It no longer does for "today's generation."  I can tell you that as a current substitute teacher. 

I think the whole movie industry, wanting to target the "under 49" crowd really has it wrong.  The under-49 crowd (apologies to those here under 49, and you know I'm making a generalization the way Hollywood does - the Hollywood crowd sure just say what it means:  teens and tweens) is only concerned about the here and now, about what's "trending."  And now what's "trending" is even shorter than the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame.  By the time the last one receives a message via "tweeting," what's been tweeting about is old news.  It's so March 2012. 

That's why it amazes me that folk over 49 were kept out of the advanced screenings.  We've already got a group of over 20 who plan on having a weekend DS movie extravaganza, complete with a party and going en-masse to the movie.  The average age in the group is 55.  The oldest is 72.  We have only two who are under 49 - one is 48, the other is young whipper-snapper at 38.  More than half have never or rarely experienced DS, but because of the trailer, they can't wait to see it.  Like I said in previous posts, the trailer has given them a huge interest in the series which many loathed before.  And most of us lived and experienced the '70's.  We're looking forward to experiencing it again (along with Barnabas and Angelique and Elizabeth, et. al.).  But teens and tweens today?  It's all about the awful Twilight series (set in the today) and the film version of The Hunger Games (adapted, in a very good way, from an excellent popular novel series).  But by tomorrow, they'll be onto something else.  Teens and tweens, from my current experience, are fickle.  They want the now.  And for Hollywood, that's a dangerous "trending" thing to follow.  This weekend's box-office dynamite can and will turn into next weekend's bomb.

Gerard

[Brandon Collins]

it would seem as if Liz has taken on some of the aspects that we tend to associate with Julia's relationship with Barnabas. And I have to say I'm quite intrigued with that.

I have to say that I am as well, MB. Its definitely something that is worthy of exploring, given Liz's stature in the present day family, and it would make the most sense if she does know Barnabas' secret that she would become his confidant in this film because at least that way they could more effectively work together to bring the family back from the brink.

On another note, I'm also intrigued with how Rogers character was described in the Empire article. Why does Burton want to be so tight lipped about his character and what happens with him in the film? Perhaps it's one of the last few actual plot twists that haven't seemed to slip out at some point or another? Will we be shocked by a betrayal or perhaps a love affair that Roger has?

30 days is too long.

[KMR]

That's why it amazes me that folk over 49 were kept out of the advanced screenings.

Yes, it's really ironic that the marketing is focusing on the 18-49 age range, while it looks like a lot of the humor is really just going to go over their heads.  It's us old fogeys who are going to get most of the jokes and laugh loudest at the horror freak show (i.e., the 1970s style and culture).   

[borgosi]

Gerard - My daughter is 26.

That aside, I do agree with your post.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

It's odd because I have been in contact with a wide range of youth and young adults (16-24) and they all seem to love the trailer.  I just overhear "Dark Shadows" all over the place (I never bring it up), and it's really heartwarming.  I actually have had conversations with people about Barnabas...  Barnabas... to hear the name in public in the 21st century.  It really makes one all "warm and fuzzy inside." 

[jimbo]

Another take on the controversy. http://cliqueclack.com/flicks/2012/04/04/danny-elfman-dark-shadows-score/?utm_source=web&utm_medium=clakus&utm_campaign=social_media

The bottom line is that the trailer does not work on any level. I have seen it twice in the movie theaters and no one laughed or chuckled at the "funny" lines. The funny lines fell flat. They are simply not funny. WB has completely dropped the ball by putting all its eggs in the 18-49 demographic. This trailer either confused them or they believed it was just not funny or just plain silly. WB needs to get a trailer out there that is truly representative of the movie. WB is ruining this movie if the film is really is more of a gothic horror movie with some comedy.

[borgosi]

My daughter is 26 and I'm not around many people her age other than her friends. After they went to see Hunger Games at midnight I asked if they saw the DS trailer. After my daughter told me she was sorry, I asked what they thought about it. She said it looked silly. She is a Twilight fan. She said that vampire love stories are so big right now, why would they make a comedy out of DS. I told her I didn't know and that I hoped it wasn't a comedy, that the trailer just made it look like a comedy.

I plan to see this twice. I'm hoping for a good TB movie, if not a good DS movie.

Only time will tell.

[KMR]

There's a shot in one of the US trailers/TV spots of Barnabas with his shirt open as he and Angelique are destroying the room with their lovemaking and I also noticed that his chest is as pale as his face.

I've looked through what I think are all of the US trailers, and don't find the shot that you can see at around 1:23 in this trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROkB79OUvlQ

It's a shot of Barnabas, seen from Angelique's point of view, framed by her legs.  (I guess it was probably considered too racy for a green band trailer.)

[borgosi]

Keep in mind, you can't get much sillier than Dumb and Dumber and it did pretty good at the box office. I've never seen but I don't like silly.

[madscntst]

She said that vampire love stories are so big right now, why would they make a comedy out of DS.

LOL, I guess everyone has their own perspective.  For me, I am just thrilled that DS will be so far away from Twilight.  I mean, why do what Twilight is doing just because it is popular right now?  That's what Twilight is for, for those who like that sort of thing 


I have much to catch up on and haven't read the Empire article yet, but thanks for the link to the audio interview with Grahame-Smith.  I dunno, I don't really get the notion that he or others might be "lying" or doing "damage control," just because we may not agree with the film they've chosen to make.  I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that they're saying what they think, but that's just me  

The one part of the interview that has me the most hopeful is when Seth started talking about the music in the trailer.  I think that I addressed this issue a few days ago, after I had seen an old Hugo trailer, after having really loved the film.  The trailer wasn't that good, and I think a large part of it (for me, anyway) was that the music used in the trailer didn't capture the heart of the film.  I said that likewise, I felt that the thing that was throwing me off the most from the DS trailer wasn't so much the scenes themselves, but the music playing over them.  Seth said that yes, that music is there in the film, but not to the extent that it would seem based on the trailer.  That remark, in addition to hearing the sound snippets from the actual score, has me hopeful that I'll enjoy the tone of the movie much more than I first thought.  Music can make a big difference in the tone.  Your mileage may vary, of course! 

By the way, I can only tell from one filmgoing experience wrt the trailer, but the folks at my showing of 21 Jump Street seemed to enjoy the DS trailer.  Granted, I think that the 21 Jump Street audience may skew older (and more nostalgia-oriented) than Hunger Games, so that may in part explain the difference in reactions.

[borgosi]

There's nothing I like about Twilight and would hope to never have a DS film that's at all like it.

I think people going to 21 Jump St. would react to the trailer because they both appear to be comedies. Hunger Games isn't a comedy so people going to it may not be in thr right frame of mind for a trailer that looks to be a comedy. Just a guess.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It's a shot of Barnabas, seen from Angelique's point of view, framed by her legs.  (I guess it was probably considered too racy for a green band trailer.)

It may be too racy for US green band trailer sensibilities - but it's certainly not too racy for here on the forum.

   And thanks so much for the link, KMR. 


And that article about the trailer vs. the score makes an interesting point because it's certainly true that trailers are often farmed out to companies that have no connection to the studio or to the creators of a film. Who knows - perhaps that really is what happened with DS. Though one would think that if the Warner Brothers' marketing department didn't like what they got from such a company, they would have asked their hire to do it over or perhaps even gone elsewhere. But then, again, who knows? Though so far as the general reaction to the trailer goes, at worst we can say it's been mixed because there are people who hate it, there are people who love it, there are Web sites that question what in the world Warner Brothers was thinking when they put it out, and there are Web sites that endorse it and think it's great.

36 days 1 hours 45 minutes 12 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[KMR]

All I can say right now is that shot of Barnabas is really making me impatient for the release of HODS--I'm itching to see Don in his blue jammies in Blu-ray!