Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!!

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Wow, MB!  That is fantastic!  It really brings out new details - especially in the flashback, the part of that ad I love the most.  So thank you so much for doing this! 

And I totally understand the watermark, which isn't even noticeable.  It's unfortunate that people don't give credit where credit is due. 

[ProfStokes]

The video interview with Grahame-Smith was very interesting. I wonder if John August's original script will ever become available to the public.  I'd love to see what the original "straightforward, darker" take on the film was like.

I agree with borgosi that people associated with a movie/TV show aren't always above skewing information or even providing misinformation in an attempt to make their product more appealing.  As an example, the producers of "Lost" would frequently make statements or promises about the direction of the show or the trajectory of characters that would quickly be disproven by subsequent episodes.  Yet, even though fans found this frustrating, the show continued to garner lots of viewers.  In the age of the Internet, when information is easily obtained and leaked, I can believe that the practice of issuing "foilers" as a security measure or a way to hold an audience's interest could become more acceptable and might not necessarily be seen as unethical. 

However, to give SGS the benefit of the doubt, I'm willing to believe that, because he's not an original series fan, it's possible that the comedic elements of the film/trailer don't seem as overwhelming and discordant to him as they do to some of the people who have been critical of the DS movie.  Perhaps he genuinely thinks the movie has a balanced blend of horror/gothic/romance/comedy elements.

Incidentally, SGS is supposed to appear at the Los Angeles Festival of Books at USC (April 21-22).  I plan to go; I'm curious to see what the guy is like in person.

ProfStokes

[neiljohnson]

Thank you for posting the new version of the trailer.  Very high resolution!  Wondering if anyone else noticed the deep scars on Angelique's face during one scene?  Although we've discussed it briefly, they are much easier to see in this version of the trailer, especially if you maximize the screen-size.  The scars appear similar to those on Adam from TOS, but without stitches.  How will this play into the plot?  Why would a witch have scars on her face?  Anyone care to speculate?

[Midnite]

Regarding the lines on Angelique's face, could they be veins, a la Dark Willow from Buffy?

[Gothick]

Prof Stokes, I would love to hear your report about the Graham-Smith appearance.  I wonder whether there will be crowds of people in zombie parade costume given his association with the "zombie" genre.

The guy is hotter than a pepper sprout (to quote Nancy Sinatra) in H'wood at the moment.  I wonder whether it will last.

G.

[Phil]

Regarding the lines on Angelique's face, could they be veins, a la Dark Willow from Buffy?

When you watch it in HD via Quicktime, the lines are opening. She's cracking or something.

[neiljohnson]

I wonder if Barnabas [spoiler]kills Angelique and cuts her up, to dispose of the body.[/spoiler] Then perhaps, she pulls herself back together and [spoiler]comes back to life.[/spoiler]  Or maybe, Julia helps her with this.  Anything is possible, I suppose.

[jimbo]

Thanks MB for the wonderful video.

My take from a recent post is that SGS may actually believe what he is saying about the DS movie not being as comedic as the trailers suggest but that the movie nonetheless may be as comedic as the trailers have shown.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Although, Grahame-Smith says the beginning of the film isn't humorous and the final third of the film really isn't, so we shall see.

And as for TV shows possibly turning out differently than what advanced spoilers and/or staff remarks may lead viewers to believe, I can easily understand how that happens because TV shows are living, breathing things that can often veer off in different directions from what may have been planned once their scripts are actually written. I've read many interviews with TV show writers/producers/whatever in which that has been the case. (Though I've read them after the fact because, just like I'm avoiding spoilers for the DS films, I avoid spoilers for all the TV shows I watch because I like to see things unfold the way they actually do in the eps, as opposed to knowing way beforehand and it being less of a surprise and, therefore, it having less of an impact. And since I've never paid attention to spoilers, if things do actually turn out differently than advance info might have led viewers to believe, it doesn't phase me in the slightest.) For instance, I now know that the identity of the dead body on the beach in the pilot of Revenge changed many times between the time the pilot was shot and the recent ep finally revealing the identity was aired. (And just as an aside, if you're not watching Revenge, shame on you because it's one of the best shows on TV this season!)

On the others hand, it's not so much a case that those types of situations will happen with a film. Certain talked about scenes may end up on the cutting room floor (though these days they're often likely to show up as deleted scenes in the DVD extras), but trailers notwithstanding because they can often be misleading, it's a rarity when a film is described officially or in articles as one thing and it actually turns out to be something entirely different. That just wouldn't be very good business practice. And even in the case of The Blair Witch Project, even if it wasn't true in reality, at least within the premise of the film itself it was true that the footage was shot by real people and then discovered, so the concept of the film itself was not misrepresented..

33 days 11 hours 1 minute 9 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Thank you for posting the new version of the trailer.  Very high resolution!

Everyone is very welcome and I'm glad it's appreciated.    Plus I got to learn how to use a new piece of software, and the computer geek in me always loves when that happens. 

Hopefully I'll get to post the next TV Spot later today. The next one in chronological order from the way they were first aired is the original version of "the box and peanuts" spot - and since I never posted high resolutions screen captures from that because at first all I had was the YouTube version, I'll probably post some caps from whatever was new in that one at the time it came out.

33 days 10 hours 50 minutes 59 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[jimbo]

It almost seemed in SGS last interview that he was in spin mode and/or damage control mode or deflecting some blame for the movie's comedic content. I do take him at his word but when you compare that to people who have also seen the movie and have a completely different take on it, it just creates some doubt for sure. I am sure the studio is happy with the amount of talk the trailers have generated. I am not sure if it is thrilled with the trailers creating confusion unless that is its goal. I think the buzz around this movie is not solid. This site has the DS movie in 25th place http://www.nextmovie.com/movietracker/ and this is after the official trailer(s) was released. I hope the next trailer shows what SGS sees. I am still holding out some hope.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It should also be noted, though, that it went up to #25 from #32 - and more noteworthy is that sentiment is 80% positive (whereas something like The Dark Knight Rises, which one might expect to be higher, is at 75%). The film is even #25 on this week's IMDb MOVIEmeter, and it's natural for films to climb and fall as publicity ebbs and flows, and there wasn't much new last week, which is why it fell on IMDb. So, in that respect, it's actually interesting that it climbed on their chart.

33 days 7 hours 25 minutes 30 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[jimbo]

Let's hope that the new trailer coming up gets people more excited and is truly an accurate depiction of the movie.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I've read SGS's only book that he wrote on his own and while I didn't like it, it's style was completely different from what we see in these trailers. As much as I don't care SGS I don't think it's his fault that we got the film that we got. What ever that turns out to be.

For what it's worth - and I have no idea what that is because I've never read any of his books - I just saw that in this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly they reviewed Grahame-Smith's new novel Unholy Night (which details what the Three Wise Men were really up to on the night of Jesus' birth) and they gave it an A.


And on a separate but Grahame-Smith related note, I was talking to the friend who will give me the WSJ article tomorrow, and he said that the writer of the article gives the impression that Grahame-Smith injected humor into the DS script where there was none originally when John August wrote his draft. However, we know that is not the case because, as I've said, Grahame-Smith didn't come on board until July of 2010, yet back in April of 2010 Richard Zanuck had already commented that August's script was "very funny." 

33 days 7 hours 11 minutes 19 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Let's hope that the new trailer coming up gets people more excited

80% positive would seem to already be pretty excited. It's certainly possible to go higher, but I don't know if we can really expect much higher than that. 

33 days 7 hours 7 minutes 56 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!