No, there were pre-Burton possibilities. It was announced in July of '07 that Depp had optioned the rights to DS and would be making a film - but Burton didn't indicate that he was potentially interested in directing until sometime in January of '08 - and he didn't officially come on board until June of '08, almost a year after we first heard about the film.
It's all detailed in the first 270 or so posts of the "It's official: Dark Shadows returns as a film with Johnny Depp" topic - along with a lot of fears about Burton directing.