I have no idea if this photo is real. Somehow I doubt it is (it seems more like some DS fan tried his/her hand at image manipulation.  )  But IF it is, how appropriate would the tattoo be for the future Barnabas? 

The photo is definitely a fake.  Johnny does indeed have a number of tattoos, and the ones you can see on his arms in that picture are real.  But the photo was taken in 1995 by William Maser, when he had no tattoos on his chest:
http://www.deppography.com/Depp/item.php?q=1995-00-00-PS-Maser_04911

Now, he does have one tattoo on his chest- in 1999, he got one of his daughter's name, Lily-Rose, as can be seen in this photo that was used for the cover of Rolling Stone earlier this year:
http://www.deppography.com/Depp/item.php?q=2008-01-00-PS-Rolston_01784

but no "Fangxious"

I do wish we would hear some word about the status of DS, but I suspect there won't be anything newsworthy for them to announce until the script is completed.  So, I will cross my fingers for that to happen soon!

Hi Gothick, you've already figured out the mystery movie, but to clarify real quickly, it was a film called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and it started filming in the fall of 2000.  All kinds of things started going wrong (the elderly actor who took sick was French actor Jean Rochefort, who would've played Don Quixote, there was also a flood in Spain where they were shooting, and various other problems), so that the plug was pulled after only 6 days of filming.  The whole sordid story is told in the documentary, Lost In La Mancha.  Vanessa Paradis, Johnny's romantic partner of over 10 years (they have never officially married but consider themselves married and have 2 children together), would have been in the film, and it would have been the only time they've ever worked together on a film.

I'm not surprised the story has surfaced again, because every chance Gilliam gets, he is only too happy to tell the media that he is getting the funding together and the rights back to do the film again, and when he does, that Johnny will be in it.  For Johnny's part, Johnny has said for years that if Terry gets the project going again, he's in.   (No word on whether Vanessa would also be in it).  Johnny is very loyal to his friends, and I think the Man Who Killed Don Quixote issue is one of the reasons he stepped in so quickly to do Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus after Heath Ledger's death.  I do think that Johnny would try his best to be in Don Quixote if he can do it.  However, I've become pretty skeptical of Gilliam in recent years- all his projects are either flops or seem jinxed.  Though it's theoretically possible, I don't think it's likely this will get off the ground again any time soon.  Johnny may be old enough to play Don Quixote by the time it happens! 

I'm even more excited about the Barbara Steele remarks now that I know she has been connected with DCP.  I really hope that the timeframe she has described will pan out!!

Cathy

Disney did not give any kind of timeframe for Pirates 4, as far as we've been able to tell from official announcement.  When Terry Rossio (the cowriter for the Pirates trilogy) debunked the recent rumors about #4, I think he said there's no script and not even a storyline, and that there's pretty much nothing to say about it at this point.  In fact, he seemed annoyed that Disney even brought it up this soon.  Which makes me wonder, why does he assume that he's going to write it?   (Though he probably will-- he and his partner Ted Elliot are writing (or have written) the script for The Lone Ranger, which is also in Johnny's pipeline.

At any rate, I'd assume that Pirates 4 is currently way behind DS in terms of development, though of course as we know, things don't always get done in the same order and in the same amount of time.  But I'm hoping Pirates 4 comes WAYYY after DS.  For what it's worth, I think Pirates 1 is a great film, and Johnny definitely deserved the Oscar nomination he got for it      

Nothing really new or revealing, but DS was mentioned briefly in a recent interview Tim Burton did with a blogger from the LA Times.  Basically, he's asked about DS, says he's interested but has to work on Alice first, and does not offer any info on whether there is a "plan" for DS.  But I think it's a good sign that he acknowledges it-- he's not a very wordy guy      By the way, Johnny was spotted in LA on Monday, and he is clean-shaven (where his tendency is often to keep a beard and mustache if he's not filming, as he has looked most of the summer), so we speculate that he may have started filming Alice In Wonderland already or will be imminently.  I hope that film gets done quickly!

The interview:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/10/tim-burton-talk.html

Interesting article, but too simplistic, in my opinion.  I mean, they are lumping The Lone Ranger and Dark Shadows together because they're both remakes of TV shows.  But I don't exactly expect them to be similar!  And I could be wrong, but I highly doubt that Johnny will portray Tonto (or Barnabas, for that matter) as a simplistic stereotype.  That said, some Depp fans are indeed worried about all the recent Disney announcements, and take them as a sign that Johnny's not taking "interesting" roles anymore.  But I say, wait and see!  Finally, the article makes no mention of the 2 films that are actually going to be released next: Public Enemies and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which are both pretty different roles for him.

The best thing about the article is that they admit that DS could be "pretty great."  I agree!!

Interestingly, I was following some Sondheim boards around the time of casting for Sweeney Todd, and a lot of folks wanted to see Anne Hathaway as Johanna (she is apparently a very good singer, and I think she has performed some pieces from Sweeney Todd).  Interestingly too, she would have had to have become blonde for the role    I don't know if she was even on Tim's radar at the time, but now that she is, who knows?  I could see her as Vicki.

As for Helena, the lucky thing about Tim always casting her lately is that he doesn't necessarily always cast her in a lead role.  So really, if she's in Dark Shadows, she could be cast as anyone (Mrs. Johnson??  LOL)  But Julia Hoffman seems to me like it might be a good fit for her.  I don't particularly envision her as Angelique (i am still liking the idea of Charlize Theron), but I'm happy to keep an open mind for now.

The good thing is that DS is continuing to be mentioned in these articles!

Cathy

Some interesting speculations and predictions, Zahir!  I think you are dead on (pardon the pun!) about just about everything.  Regarding Helena Bonham Carter, I really like her too, and I assume that she will be involved if Tim directs.  But for some reason, I am hoping she won't be a lead, or a love interest, just because it might be fun to see her in a kookier supporting role.  Also, even though I know they're just acting, there seems to be something a little weirdly incestuous about pairing Johnny and Helena as a romantic couple.  I like that the pairings so far have *not* been that (she was a minor character, and happily married, if poor, in Charlie, she was the "other woman" in Corpse Bride, and it was what I saw as a one-way attraction in Sweeney Todd).

Christopher Lee was originally going to be in Sweeney Todd-- he was even shown in a promo ad that was in Variety on the first day of filming.  He was going to be the "gentleman ghost" and sing part of the Ballad, but the idea was scrapped before it got to be filmed. He was disappointed, but on a blog that I think his son wrote, expressed no hard feelings about it.  So, assuming he maintains his health and the filming isn't *too* far in the future, I could definitely see him in a role, and it would be so fitting!   And I would dearly love for Martin Landau and Johnny to be able to work together again, and Martin has some experience with coffins, too!  Well, I don't want to go too far into casting ideas on this thread, but one issue to consider is what the storyline is going to be about, in the first place!  And therefore, what characters will be in the film.  I'm so curious!!

Regarding Danny Elfman, yes, he's done every film with Tim except for Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd (and the latter was only because the music was already composed, and doing orchestration and whatnot is not usually Elfman's strong suit).  However, if he is involved, and maybe some of you who know more about the rights to the series music can chime in, here, I dearly hope that some of Cobert's original music can be integrated into the film. It is such familiar music that it would be a shame not to use it in some way.

As for the coffins, I feel that Johnny is going to have a blast with that.  He'll probably love to wear fangs, as well!  Also, Tim and Johnny have always joked about how Tim loves to squirt Johnny with lots of blood, and I'm sure there will be lots of opportunity for that.  Which will beg the question, what kind of a rating would they shoot for?  For Sweeney Todd, they knew from the beginning that it would be an R, and Tim had no intention of trying to sanitize the gore to get a lower rating.  But for DS, I wonder if they will try to shoot for the wider audience that a PG-13 would allow.  They certainly *could* make it an R-rated movie, but they don't necessarily *have* to.  It'll be interesting to see their decision.  I'm not sure I have a preference- I don't mind gore at all, and I don't like for a film to be squeaky clean, but I am also a huge fan of Hitchcock and know that a lot can be accomplished by implying what isn't shown.

Me too- what an improvement from having been reduced to saying "I don't understand!" every episode    Oh well.