It's official: Dark Shadows returns as a film with Johnny Depp

[David]

IMDB now lists Gabriel Freilich as playing "hippie #3" in Depp Shadows.
Now that the trolls are out and about, I'm going to cast myself as Burke Devlin.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

MB and all, here is an Entertainment Weekly bit that does have more about DS.

Well, OK - something like that article makes more sense. Thanks for the link. 

Considering EW promises Depp's thoughts on both, It would be nice if both the 21 Jump Street piece and that DS piece came up with the URL EW provides in its issue - but it's still only the one on 21 Jump Street.    But hopefully they'll eventually change that...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

IMDB now lists Gabriel Freilich as playing "hippie #3" in Depp Shadows.

Another actor has been added at the imdb website (Gabriel Freilich).

One has to be really quick to outscoop jimbo on these things.


But speaking of IMDb, I see that's there's been quite a bit of shuffling with the actors' STARMeters. Here's their previous standings last week:

Johnny Depp ... Barnabas Collins    7

Helena Bonham Carter ... Dr. Julia Hoffman (rumored)   78

Chloe Moretz ... Carolyn Stoddard    113

Michael Sheen ... Roger Collins    155

Eva Green ... Angelique Bouchard    206

Michelle Pfeiffer ... Elizabeth Collins Stoddard    477

Thomas McDonell ... Young Barnabas Collins    566

Jackie Earle Haley ... Willie Loomis    910

Bella Heathcote ... Victoria Winters    4,091

Gulliver McGrath ... David Collins    27,296

with

Gabriel Freilich ... Hippie 3 (uncredited)   59,774

Now they're:

Johnny Depp ... Barnabas Collins    6

Helena Bonham Carter ... Dr. Julia Hoffman (rumored)   69

Chloe Moretz ... Carolyn Stoddard    103

Michael Sheen ... Roger Collins    133

Michelle Pfeiffer ... Elizabeth Collins Stoddard    135

Eva Green ... Angelique Bouchard    260

Thomas McDonell ... Young Barnabas Collins    315

Jackie Earle Haley ... Willie Loomis    644

Bella Heathcote ... Victoria Winters    4,398

Gulliver McGrath ... David Collins    27,260

with

Gabriel Freilich ... Hippie 3 (uncredited)   28,961

Depp, Bonham Carter, Moretz, Sheen (probably not in the film, but...), Pfeiffer, McDonell, Haley, McGrath, and even Freilich have all risen, with only Heathcote and Green slipping down.

Of course, Depp's climb is attributed to all the publicity surrounding Pirates, Moretz to her recent MTV Movie Award nominations, Sheen to the ratcheting up of Breaking Dawn Part 1's publicity, and McDonell to the release of and the publicity surrounding Prom. Interestingly, though, IMDb isn't citing any reasons for Haley, McGrath or Freilich climbing. But even more interesting is that IMDb is citing McDonell's mentioning of them in a few interviews as the reason Bonham Carter and Pfeiffer have climbed. I suppose one can never discount what may happen when a hot young star talks about you - and particularly when he talks about you the way he's talked about Pfeiffer.  

[patrickm]

Among other things, she mentions how the special effects team has done a plaster body cast of her. The mind boggles at the possibilities that suggests!

After seeing Eva Green in The Dreamers recently - you better believe the mind boggles at the suggested possibilities MB....

[Cousin_Barnabas]

I would love to see someone dissect that EW article, because I am afraid to at the moment.  "Bad acting," "corny," "Sliver of [Frid]," and "really bad acting."  Please, my brain does not compute. 

[jimbo]

I share Cousin Barnabas' apprehension on the remarks JD made in that article. I think his remarks on the surface are pathetic and disrespectful. Now we know why the script is so very funny to everyone who read it.

[Stuart]

I didn't really read anything disturbing in Johnny Depp's comments – it sounds like an intent to give an 'out-there' performance. Frankly, that's no surprise, he's built his career on doing that. I'd expect him to do nothing less.

Reading the latest interview with Eva Green puts a lot of it into perspective. She's clearly a very committed, thoughtful actress, certainly not someone who signs up to things on a whim, and she's taking the character very seriously. I think people have to be realistic. This film is not going to be a carbon copy of the original Dark Shadows, but it's not going to be a Saturday Night Live skit either.

[jimbo]

What I don't wish to see is a Jack Sparrow like performance. DS was never intentionally made funny. I find disturbing that JD intentionally wants to make the Barnabas character beyond corny. I am concerned about that comment. On a more positive note I enjoyed reading your blog on what Eva Green had to say in the Harper's Bazzar interview.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

There's a reason that the word-choice was jarring.  Because, in the last interview, Depp had nothing but praise for Frid.  He said he would stay very close to Frid's interpretation and would "wax the poetic."  ''Corny'' and ''bad acting'' don't jive with these previous comments.  But, they do align very well with the "funny script" we've been hearing about.  I'm not going to judge anything yet, as I still have faith in the film.  But, the interview was a tad disappointing - especially coming from the star of the show.  Maybe we're reading it wrong, but I - someone who has yet to be really disappointed by anything I've read about the film - do question this.  Maybe it was a bad interview.  Let's hope so. 

[borgosi]

I don't think any of us want a "carbon copy" of the original Dark Shadows. I also don't think any of us want anything like a "Saturday Night Live skit". I do know that the more I read about this movie the more I wish it wasn't being made. If this turns out to be a very funny, corny comedy, I may never watch another Johnny Depp or Tim Burton movie.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I didn't really read anything disturbing in Johnny Depp's comments – it sounds like an intent to give an 'out-there' performance. Frankly, that's no surprise, he's built his career on doing that. I'd expect him to do nothing less.

Exactly. And Depp's comments struck me as very similar to a few of the things that Ben Cross had said back in '91 while promoting the Revival:

Cross: "The challenge is to find other facets to the vampire psychology that, perhaps, haven't been portrayed before - or at least not to the, ah, melodramatic or hammy depths I'm taking this particular character to."
Interviewer: "How hammy is that?"
Cross: "Well, it's very near, very near that abyss of tastelessness, you know."

Cross meant absolutely no disrespect with those remarks, nor were there ever the slightest hints in his performance that he was not taking the material or the show itself seriously. In fact, with few exceptions, Cross got some of the best reviews of his career for the Revival. And as anyone who's ever read many of the articles on the Revival will attest, it was DC who not only pushed Cross but all the actors to go to the edge with their performances. The same can be said to be true of DC and the directors of the original DS with regard to its actors. So, if Depp takes his performance to the edge, as he seems to be implying with his remarks in the latest EW piece, he'll simply be following in the tried and true DS tradition.

And yes, Depp did indeed say that his performance in the film will be close to what Frid had done. And I have every expectation that there is a way that Depp's most recent remarks are completely in keeping with his previous ones. We may not know how to reconcile them until we actually see the film. But as I've said before, each of these interviews is a part of the whole as to what the film is intended to be, and none should be taken out and examined separately from the others. They should always be interpreted in light of the whole. Seeming contradictions will surely reconcile themselves eventually...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I was just over at IMDb and noticed that Gabriel Freilich and his uncredited Hippie 3 have disappeared from the cast list - yet Michael Sheen is still listed for Roger. IMDb is very strange...

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Cross got a little hammy now and then, but, yes, it always looked very serious.  I hope that this is what we will see from Burton and Depp.  Like I said, I'm not going to leap to any conclusions, but I was thrown by Depp's remarks.  If he turns in a performance like Frid or Cross, we will be in good hands. 

[jimbo]

No matter how one attempts to rationalize JD"s remarks in question, we are still left with the man's own words which I still find troubling. And of course there is that very funny script that is also "out there". We can only hope for the best.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

No matter how one attempts to rationalize JD"s remarks in question, we are still left with the man's own words which I still find troubling.

Though the point of my post is that some fans could have found the remarks I quoted from Ben Cross to be troubling as well - but in the end, they needn't have worried because Cross gave a performance that did justice to both the Barnabas character and DS itself - not to mention Cross gave a performance that was specific to DC's own wishes. And none of that is in any way a rationalization - it's all fact.  

And so far as Depp goes, he has said many encouraging things in other interviews, so I'm also saying that one shouldn't ever lose sight of that.

We can only hope for the best.

And I can't say that anything Depp has recently said makes me think we won't get it.