Quote from: KMR on March 14, 2012, 07:27:08 PM

As I understand it, making the DS movie wasn't any Warner Bros. execs' idea, it was Johnny Depp's.  Johnny Depp was the one who wanted to make the movie, and ended up at Warner Bros.  It was Johnny, not Warner, that wanted Tim aboard, wasn't it?

Correct. Depp owned the rights and could have taken it to whatever studio he wished.

Wrong.
Wrong as in incorrect.

[edited by admin]

Reviving Dark Shadows with a definitive feature film was Dan Curtis' idea before Depp and Burton got control of it.


Richard

Dan Curtis negotiated with MGM / WB to make a Dark Shadows feature film. He was unwilling to surrender creative control. The studios may have had Depp and Burton in mind the whole while, who knows.

I agree with you, Richard and the fact that this will clearly be a comedy makes me sick. For awhile I had hopes that the yay sayers were right and that it wasn't going to be THAT funny but it looks like I'm wrong. What gives me pause is the legions of original fans who are ready to embrace such a thing. And you know I saw the 2004 pilot at a DS fest. I didn't care for it because I didn't feel it was true to Dan Curtis' vision either BUT I think that was more faithful than what this train wreck will likely be.

In the one discussion I had with Dan Curtis, he expressed his disappointment in the first reboot and his disgust in the second reboot. There were creative control arguments, and he regretted making the concessions he made. He did not like the direction discussions were going in for a Dark Shadows feature. Watch that interview with Curtis on The Night Stalker / The Night Strangler DVD for his thoughts on the subject. I think Curtis realized that MGM and Warner Brothers wanted the intellectual property but not his involvement.

Richard

i try not to get on a soap box here but the venomousness of "richard's" post is quite stunning and completely out of sync with the tone generally set here.

i'll assume richard since you're new you're somewhat unfamiliar with your surroundings but do you realize how many people you could have... and likely did...offend with your remarks?

i have a news bulletin: DS had and has a huge queer fanbase...present company very much included...and a large contingent at this board. so to throw someone's sexuality around in s sneering way or to use the words "gay" and "diseased" in the same sentence is totally out of line.

another bulletin. the new york based theater community had and has a large number of gays(try not to be too horrified!)many of whom made their way onto the series at some point or another so a significant gay subtext can be read into certain situations of one reads between the lines so to speak. i actually think an exploration of this topic would be fascinating(as a completely separate project from the burton/depp film)and i don't consider myself to be "stupid" or "diseased".

so please take that into consideration and be respectful with your remarks in the future.

My remarks are not disrespectful, and there was no venom in my mind when I posted it. You are projecting the venom.

I did not know about the queer fanbase on this forum, no, but I don't see how it matters one way or another unless you are denying heterosexuals the right to enjoy the program, too. Anyone who thinks their orientation "owns" the program is just kidding themselves and needs to grow up.

In view of the fact that I was born and raised in NYC and studied drama and film there and got my first job in TV there before getting married and moving to California, I can't say that you're telling me anything I don't already know. But to suggest that Dark Shadows is a gay program for a gay audience is simple not true and not accurate. However, I would expect gay audiences to find as much to relate to and identify with in the program as heterosexual audiences did, and do. I do not think about it until someone makes an issue out of it. I don't like Phil Nobile's article, and I don't like his suggestion that the forthcoming film be turned into an expose of the gay members of the cast struggling over their orientations while doing the program. Dark Shadows is a horror story of the imagination from literary influences, not a gay biopic. Audiences should be shown the characters within the context of a narrative story; not the actors in their orientations. If you expose the creative process behind any program -- any program at all -- you will undermine the suspension of disbelief required to sustain it, and then you will kill it, as a bankable property, forever.

I'm reminded of the old controversy over Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle always insisted that Holmes and Watson were merely partners in the detection of crime. He became very irritated with people who insisted on finding a gay subtext where none was intended, inferred, implied, or stated consciously or unconsciously. Eventually he became offended by people who insisted he was lying, as if to tell him he does not know his own mind or his own orientation. As a rule, he did not write about sexuality. I think what Doyle failed to realize is that gay people are as free to relate to and identify with a literary work as heterosexuals are.  A literary or dramatic work invites audience participation. That is the function drama -- whether it be on TV, film, live theater, or charades in the living room -- has in our lives.


Richard

Photo of Kirsten Van Wagner.
Since neither the actress nor her agency has denied the rumors, it's probably true.
She looks a little like Alexandre Moltke.
Is Burton casting look-alikes?


Richard

Okay, I've read the article by Phil Nobile Jr linked in the initial post. It's quite a put-down. He certainly takes a cynical and eccentric view of the program. If he thinks confusion and stage fright are all that Frid's performance amounts to, he doesn't recognize acting when he sees it. And if he thinks a homosexual secret is what the character of Barnabas Collins is about, I suspect Nobile Jr is really talking about himself. The only valid interpretation of Dark Shadows is the superficial one: Barnabas is a vampire because he is the victim of a supernatural curse. Vampirism is not a metaphor for homosexuality in Dark Shadows. The writers are telling a straightforward story about vampires, ghosts, witches and werewolves, and they provide motivations and conflicts for the characters which draw on emotional states and which prompt an emotional response like every drama is supposed to. That's all the program is about, that's why it was a hit, and that's why it remains popular. Audiences did not know or care if some of the actors were gay nor did they perceive a gay subtext in the program. There was no gay subtext in either the writing or the performing of Dark Shadows.Forgive my language, but Nobile Jr has his head stuck up his ass.

Further, the notion of making a Dark Shadows movie as a gay expose of the cast at work on the set and the uncomprehending dumbness of its audience is not only a bad idea, it is diseased, and a profoundly stupid proposition not worth a pixel of cyber space.

yours truly,

Richard

(edited by admin)

How about a link to the article?

Richard

Frid's photobook and the House of Dark Shadows novelization are the only two Dark Shadows paperbacks I managed to hold onto over the years. They are in near-mint condition, too, except for my name written across the inside front cover.

Now I'm reading the screenplays that Kathryn Leigh Scott published. Hmmm.

Richard