Jonny Depp as Barnabus Collins?

Jonny Depp And Tim Burton Vamp It Up In Dark Shadows!

by Matt McDaniel   
July 29, 2009

Three of the most talked-about things at Comic-Con last week were vampires ("New Moon" and "True Blood"), another movie pairing director Tim Burton and Johnny Depp ("Alice in Wonderland"), and updates of cult '60s TV shows ("Doctor Who" and "The Prisoner"). So how excited fans would get if all of those elements could be combined into one movie?

Apparently, we'll find out when Burton and Depp team up for the big-screen adaptation of "Dark Shadows," the Gothic soap opera about vampires, ghosts, and monsters that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. Burton confirmed this last Thursday when he presented footage from "Alice in Wonderland" to a capacity crowd at Comic-Con's cavernous Hall H. He said "Dark Shadows" would be his next project, "if I ever finish this one here."

Before Lestat, Angel, and Edward Cullen, there was Barnabas Collins, a 175-year-old vampire who stalked the town of Collinsport, Maine pining for his lost love. Originally, the character of Barnabas, played by Jonathan Frid, was only intended for a 13-week story arc on "Dark Shadows," but he caused such a sensation with viewers he became the lead character for the next four years. The show spawned two movies in the early '70s, a revived series in 1991, and a pilot that was not picked up for series in 2004.

Depp would play Barnabas, a role he told Collider.com has been "a lifelong dream for me." Depp has said he loved the show as a child: "I was obsessed with Barnabas Collins. I have photographs of me holding Barnabas Collins posters when I was five or six." Depp has been pursuing the movie adaptation for years, buying the remake rights through his production company, Infinitum-Nihil.

Burton has also spoken about his fascination with the original show. He told the Los Angeles Times, "It had the weirdest vibe to it. I'm sort of intrigued about that vibe." He also spoke about the recent influx of vampire movies: "It's like any great fable or fairytale, it's got a power to it... There's something symbolic about it that touches people in different ways."

While both Depp and Burton seem excited to start work on what will be their eighth collaboration, production might have to wait until after Depp finishes work on the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. Disney's Head of Production Oren Aviv said in an interview with ComingSoon.net that filming will start in April or May of next year, with a release planned for 2011. Aviv says the intention for the next movie is to "scale it down, because we can't get bigger... I want to kind of reboot the whole thing and bring it down to its core, its essence, just characters."

So it may be a while before Depp bares his fangs as a vampire. If "Dark Shadows" also hits theaters in 2011, it could be up against the final "Twilight" film, "Breaking Dawn." But if it's delayed another year, audiences might be over their bloodsucker addiction. Still, it seems that if anyone can create a dark, atmospheric, and entrancing vampire tale, it would be Johnny Depp and Tim Burton. To preview the fantastic sights of their version of "Alice in Wonderland" coming next March, watch the teaser trailer below.