Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!!

[Miss_Winthrop]

Being a big fan of Elizabeth, I read with happiness that she will be a rival to Angelique.  I'm assured that she will have some quality screen time and not just exist as part of the background like she was in the later DS episodes  .  At times, I do feel sick whenever I read Chloe M's interviews about how funny or weird or whatever she is using at the time to describe DS.  I realize she is only 13 or 14 and thinks and speaks differently about life than say an adult does.

[Gothick]

Thanks Zahir for posting those hulu links.  I played the clips, and it was interesting to see Chloe in action as up till now I had only seen photographs.  She is very poised, and very young.  She revealed that she trained for seven months to do "Let me in," and that she studied at the Performing Arts High School in NYC (she must have been admitted there when she was only 10, which seems extraordinary, but she made no comment about this).

She doesn't discuss the DS project at all in the available clips.  They do talk about Hugo which of course opens today.

I see her huge popularity as very symptomatic of our culture's seeming obsession with very young teenagers (or barely pubescent girls)--I have read a number of articles about this over the past five years.  It is a phenomenon I find very strange, although it is adumbrated obviously in Nabokov's Lolita and in Donovan's Mellow Yellow ("I'm just mad about fourteen/fourteen's mad about me").

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I see her huge popularity as very symptomatic of our culture's seeming obsession with very young teenagers (or barely pubescent girls)

Perhaps. Though it certainly doesn't hurt that she's terribly talented. 

[madscntst]

Here is a new YouTube interview with Alice Cooper (at least it's dated today, and I hope it's not a repost but I haven't seen it before)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwGZJDDQHXI

Poor Alice- I have no doubt that he did watch the show back in the day, but he clearly has a poor memory of DS     Actually, I think that there are probably a lot of folks out there of a certain age who are the same- who if you asked them about it, they'd remember running home from school, but if you actually asked for details they might be rather vague about what they remember.  I think this is going to be a perfect audience for the film, because they'll be receptive and maybe it'll help bring back a new love for the show.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Poor Alice, indeed.    But like you've said, anyone who hasn't really seen DS since it was originally on is going to easily confuse what the storylines were like - and I suspect you're completely right in thinking that those sorts of past fans may be a portion of the potential audience that Burton & Co. and Warner Brothers are hoping to attract.

Thanks for providing the YouTube link.    I think the video was linked through some other link that had been posted to another Web site. But as I always say, it's so much better to have multiple links to something than to have missed something entirely.  

167 days 7 hours 33 minutes 12 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[madscntst]

Oh, sounds like the video wasn't new then- sorry!    I hadn't seen it but I think I missed some stuff at a time when I was pretty busy.  I think that a lot of folks around my age have very a fond remembrance of DS, even if they are not die-hards now.

By the way, I just got back from seeing Hugo-- wonderful film.  Besides Johnny being a producer, and Chloe Moretz playing one of the lead characters, I didn't realize that Gulliver McGrath (David Collins) is in it.  He has a really teensy part- I don't even think he has any lines, but he sure is cute as a button.  I'm kind of hoping he'll still be cute-- but not TOO cute, in DS, if you know what I mean  

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Thanks for the Hugo info.    Knowing Gulliver McGrath is in it, even if it's a small parts, makes me more interested to see it than I already was. And the interesting thing about McGrath being in that film is that more than half of the major actors in DS have worked at least once with either Depp, or Burton, or Graham King or some combination of them before becoming involved with DS:

Eva Green did King's Camelot.
Michelle Pfeiffer did Burton's Batman Returns.
Chloe Moretz did King and Depp's Hugo.
Gulliver McGrath did Hugo.
Helena Bonham Carter has done too many to list.

So, their work was in some way known to at least someone involved with the film before each was cast - and it may even have gone a long way into why they were brought in and eventually cast.

167 days 5 hours 53 minutes 6 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[jimbo]

Variety article on the upcoming vampire movies. The DS movie only cost 60 million?
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118046550?refCatId=14

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Wow, I'm shocked and pleasantly surprised all at the same time. Now I'm presuming that Depp, Pfeiffer, and even some of the other actors must have taken pay cuts to make the film. And apparently as wonderful as the sets look, they must be made of something resembling industrial strength plywood,    But a smaller budget than we expected means a quicker profit than we expected - and that's most certainly not a bad thing.  

One note unrelated to DS: how quickly the writer forgets 2002's film version of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned.  

And thanks so much for link, jimbo.  

166 days 11 hours 12 minutes 32 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[michael c]

let's not forget that at the end of the day this film is still something of a gamble...

"we" of course will go see it as will diehard depp fans and perhaps fans of the vampire genre but the great masses might not be lining up the the multiplex to see a remake of an old soap opera.

depp and company might have worked for considerably less than they would have earned in something of the blockbuster category. certainly less than he makes for the 'pirates' franchise.

[michael c]

it looks like we've got an "inside man(or woman)" on the editorial staff at Harper's Bazaar...

the december issue has a "hot list" of 12 "need-to-know, must see, hear and read moments" of the upcoming year.

among such fashionable entries as a louis vuitton exhibit in paris, an elsa schiaparelli/prada show at the metropolitan, damien hirst and keith harring gallery exhibits in london and new york and most spectacularly a cecil beaton photography exhibit to celebrate the "diamond jubilee" of queen elizabeth ll's coronation at the victoria and albert museum in london is the release of DARK SHADOWS(we're number 10).  they even feature the cast photograph.

now that's some SWELL company we're keeping!

[jimbo]

I am also amazed at the apparantly low budget for the movie. The fishing village alone had to cost millions. I wonder if the 60 million includes all the special effects and marketing which could be substantial. I guess not having too many location shots saved a bundle. The Wolfman's 2010 budget for example was 150 million. However, as was pointed out here perhaps TB and JD not taking on a salary saved 50 million or so. WB must be thrilled with this budget.

[Gothick]

Now that Thanksgiving has gone and still no trailer, it makes me wonder at what kind of emotional pressures Burton may be under--from himself.

If I were as big a fan as I am and had the chance to do a remake of the some of this story, I can't imagine the kind of grief I could give myself trying to make every detail perfect.  (It does not matter that the original was rife with the imperfections of shooting material after only 2 or 3 rehearsals--in my fan's mind, it is still the ULTIMATE.)

If they are still doing post production, which I think is almost certainly the case, I don't see how there can be a final budget tally yet.  The 60 million must cover shooting costs.  I don't know about other costs.  It's interesting to think that Depp & Burton may have taken major salary cuts to get this out of the gate. 

It just may be the glossiest, most high end fan production ever seen to this date.

G.

[Gothick]

I don't really agree, btw, that interest in vampires goes in cycles.  It's just that some vampire themed projects get more play than do others.  To think about the past three decades, in the Eighties we had The Hunger, Near Dark, Fright Night and The Lost Boys; in the 1990s we had Interview with a Vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula, the cult series Forever Knight (my personal fave of all of them) and the start of the BTVS craze; in the 2000s there were the projects already referenced plus any number of others.

Margo Adler, NPR reporter and author of the landmark history of US Paganism, Drawing Down the Moon, has a new book out already or imminently on the fascination with vampires.  I heard quite a bit of buzz when I was out at the Pagan conference in San Jose last Feb., the Pantheacon.  Interesting stuff.

I don't think there is any danger that people will fail to go see DS because they're done with vampires.  There is a danger that the movie will stink and word of mouth will keep people away in droves.  A friend told me that Alice raked in big bucks because it was rated G.  I do not see how DS could possibly be rated G.

G!

[madscntst]

I'm also surprised at the $60 M figure.  Very cool if they can keep close to that.  The film budget does not typically include marketing- this is a question that often comes up on movie/award sites, and it seems that the consensus is pretty strong on that.  But I think that it is supposed to cover post-production, at least for what is estimated. I think I've read articles where some film projects end up ballooning way beyond what was estimated, so of course it seems that it's possible for post-production to add much more, but I think they at least try to account for that.

I think that in general, the budgets for Tim's films are rather modest compared with someone like say Jerry Bruckheimer    Those Pirates films really got out of control, and I'm sure that some folks here have read about the problems getting Johnny's Lone Ranger underway (and that is also a Disney/Bruckheimer film directed by Gore Verbinski, who is also a big spender).  In these cases, they cited locations as getting very expensive, especially when there are so many locations-- some of the Lone Ranger budget was cut when they simply streamlined the filming schedule so as not to have to go back and forth so much and keep a lot of crew on hand waiting in one location (to which I'd say, duh, you'd think that'd be obvious!)  All to say, even though DS had a few locations, so much of it was filmed in the studio that that might actually save money, even if they have to build a lot of elaborate sets.

I seemed to recall the Sweeney Todd budget being surprisingly low, and since I have a whole section of my music-related Depp website devoted to Sweeney, I referred to it and found this Playbill article that cites a $50 M figure:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/108819-Filming-of-Tim-Burtons-Sweeney-Todd-Complete

That's pretty unbelievable!  (And possibly a bit of a low-ball).  But it makes the $60 M for DS sound a little more believable.  I'm guessing that as a producer, Johnny was willing to take most of his pay on the back end (that is, any profits after release) and the same might be true of Tim.