Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!!

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Reminds me of that comment Dennis Patrick was rumored to have once made about HoDS being his first film to use fake rain.   

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Oops - missed this the other day:

nicholas_dale
I told my dentist's receptionist I couldn't make an appointment because I was filming. No reaction. To her I was just another movie star...
18 Aug

264 days 14 hours 3 minutes 3 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

NYC-based writer & arts reporter, Will McKinley, tweets about the Depp/DS film discussion during the Fest's reunion panel:

willmckinley Will McKinley
David Selby likens his cameo in Tim Burton's #DarkShadows to "Where's Waldo?"
30 minutes ago

Hopefully he's was just joking and his cameo is a bit better than that. Like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the cameo's are comparable to something like Camilla Ashland's appearance as Mrs. Pettibone at the hoDS costumes party. But a "Where's Waldo?" type cameo would be a whole other story...

willmckinley
Kathryn Leigh Scott says Warner Bros is hoping Tim Burton's #DarkShadows will be "the new Harry Potter" i.e. a franchise.
30 minutes ago

willmckinley
Kathryn Leigh Scott mentions a #DarkShadows sequel being planned by Warner Bros, if the Tim Burton film succeeds.
27 minutes ago

264 days 5 hours 49 minutes 7 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

willmckinley Will McKinley
Next event at #DarkShadows Festival is a panel on the Tim Burton reboot starring Johnny Depp. Beware! Spoilers ahead!
3 minutes ago

We should only be so lucky that something we don't already know about gets mentioned during the panel. But they're already running about an hour and 10 minutes late, so the Depp Shadows panel probably won't start until about 7:40 pm ET or later...

264 days 5 hours 29 minutes 8 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, Midnite just texted me that she didn't really learn anything new at the Depp Shadows panel (which started earlier than I'd thought it would because, to make up time, they started even though the autograph signing session wasn't over).

Here are the online tweets:

willmckinley Will McKinley
#DarkShadows Festival showing a montage of photos of 1960s actors on the set of 2012 film. Four of them have cameos.
17 minutes ago

willmckinley
Producer Jim Pierson says Danny Elfman will be scoring #DarkShadows film, using original TV theme by Robert Cobert.
15 minutes ago

willmckinley
Producer Jim Pierson: "This is a whole new #DarkShadows that honors the original."
12 minutes ago

willmckinley
Producer Jim Pierson says Helena Bonham Carter has been watching episodes of original #DarkShadows on the set of the film.
12 minutes ago

willmckinley
Producer Jim Pierson reminds fans there 4 were versions of #DarkShadows: 1960s soap, 1970s feature films, 1990 NBC, 2004 unsold WB pilot.
9 minutes ago

willmckinley
It sounds to me like Jim Pierson is preparing #DarkShadows fans for the Tim Burton feature being different from the TV show
6 minutes ago

willmckinley
@SciFiHorrorFem that's it. Sadly, no #darkshadows spoilers. Thanks for RTs
5 minutes ago

No spoilers? What a shock! And sadly for them, apparently neither SciFiHorrorFem or Will McKinley realize how the Fests actually work or they wouldn't have really gotten their hopes up in the first place.    And of course the film will be different. We already know that it will be. And thank heavens it will be because it would be no fun to have a retread of any of the versions that have come before...

264 days 4 hours 39 minutes 7 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[borgosi]

As for the new movie being "different" from the original. If I wanted to see something different I wouldn't go see "Dark Shadows". I want a Dark Shadows movie to be Dark Shadows. I'm ok with a few susprises but if I really wanted something different I go see Twilight. There's alot of other movies I could go see if I wanted to see something different from Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows to me is more than a title, it's a story that I love and that's the story I want. I'm ok with some changes but it should still be the story that I love. If not, why spend the money of the rights?

[michael c]

craig did briefly discuss the new film...and showed a few slides of jonathan and david in the wardrobe trailer having their hair and makeup done.

true he could not and did not reveal much but he did speak two words that have been on my mind since this film was announced: MRS. JOHNSON.

apparently the unnamed actress playing her was in hair and makeup at the same times as selby and frid and while she's no doubt a very small part in the film i'm so pleased that she will be a presence.

more deets to come.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I wonder why Mrs. Johnson isn't listed on IMDb? But then, as I've wondered many times, who knows what the hell goes on over there? Speaking of which, I noticed today that Jackie Earle Haley's name is back on the cast listing. Though, of course, who knows for how long considering that it has already disappeared and reappeared twice now.  

But anyway, thanks so much for the tidbit that Mrs. J. will indeed be in the film.  

264 days 2 hours 49 minutes 31 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[borgosi]

Don't get the wrong idea from my last post. I'm ok with twist and susprises in the new movie. It's just that when I go see a movie called "Titanic" I expect a big boat, an iceberg and I expect one to hit the other with the boat sinking. A twist where they fake the iceberg and everyone lives in hiding would be a movie that I wouldn't like. If I went to see a movie called "Frankenstein" that's about a guy that builds a race car from parts of old cars taken from a junk yard and goes on to become a champion race car driver I would not be happy.

There are some things this movie should have to be the story of Barnabas Collins. If it doesn't have them I see no point in calling it that. I just hope we have some idea if we're getting a real DS story or not before we pay to go see it.

[michael c]

considering the movie is about barnabas collins, elizabeth stoddard, victoria winters, julia hoffman, angelique bouchard, roger collins, david collins, carolyn stoddard, willie loomis AND a housekeeper named mrs.johnson, that it takes place on the collinwood estate in the town of collinsport ,maine, that barnabas is the offspring of joshua and naomi collins who leave england for america in the 1700's and establish themselves in collinsport, that bob cobert is involved in the musical score and that four of the show's original stars did cameos...

well, that SORT OF SOUNDS LIKE A DARK SHADOWS MOVIE to me. call me crazy.

[Gothick]

Thanks to MB and Michael for the reporting on the Depp Shadows panel.  I'm not surprised that there were so few revelations.  Am pleased to learn that Mrs J will at least appear.  Hopefully Jonny Lee Miller gets a line about "boiled New England dinners."

It's so unfair to the fans who were still getting autographs that they had to miss this.  But that's par for the course for the DS Festival...

G.

[borgosi]

For me it all comes down to story. If you changed all the names, the people, the town, the title, even the music, we would all be able to pick out the story. If someone changed everything but the story and remade the DS we would all scream "that's Dark Shadows" in a very loud voice. I want to be able to say that, based on the story, with this new movie.

Based on the title the "Dawn Of The Dead" remake is a remake but the story has nothing to do with the original except a mall and zombies.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

An exchange that starts off with the first tweet, so I'm including it here again:

@willmckinley
It sounds to me like Jim Pierson is preparing #DarkShadows fans for the Tim Burton feature being different from the TV show
5 hours ago

Greg_Bashjian Greg Bashjian
@willmckinley Any additional details on this for those of us not lucky enough to be there would be appreciated. & thanks for the info tday
1 hour ago

willmckinley
@Greg_Bashjian what would you like to know?
59 minutes ago

Greg_Bashjian
@willmckinley I was just wondering what Jim was saying about the new movie that made you think he was preparing older fans for change.
57 minutes ago

willmckinley
@Greg_Bashjian I was reading subtext. He made a point of saying that Curtis did DS 4 times, each one different. So get ready for different
39 minutes ago

willmckinley
@Greg_Bashjian But nobody said anything specific about plot, tone, or approach. The new movie had almost no presence at this event. Odd.
38 minutes ago

Not as odd as Mr McKinley might think given the fact that Tim Burton has clamped down so hard on info about the film that it was practically impossible for Pierson to have said much more, to have shown much more, or for the film to have had much more of a presence at the Fest than it did. And it probably wouldn't hurt to keep in mind that while each one of those 4 previous versions were different, each was also unmistakably recognizable as DS. So, even if Mr. McKinley's perceptions of Pierson's supposed subtext are correct, and Pierson was trying to imply that the Depp/DS film will be different from what has come before, that doesn't necessarily mean for one minute that the Depp/DS film will be any less recognizable as DS as those 4 previous versions were.  

willmckinley
@Greg_Bashjian I think it was a missed opportunity. Hand out a t-shirt or something, ya know? Get 2000 fans on board, spreading wordofmouth.
36 minutes ago

Greg_Bashjian
@willmckinley To me someone really missed out on a great opportunity to get us even more excited n spread the word more than we already are
34 minutes ago

Greg_Bashjian
@willmckinley Exactly right! The core fanbase thats still rabid 45 years later would have been a great marketing opportunity for them.
33 minutes ago

Sadly, given Burton's crackdown, it would have been impossible to hand out practically anything except a t-shirt with plain text that might have said something like:

Johnny Depp
Tim Burton's
Dark Shadows

I mean, if we're not even supposed to see a photo of an extra, Burton's not about to release a photo for a t-shirt or probably even the font the titles might be in. And plain text on a plain t-shirt, well, not exactly all that great a marketing tool.  

263 days 23 hours 28 minutes 1 second until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[michael c]

oops,

above when i refered to "craig" i of course meant jim pierson.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

We knew that. No worries.  


And I just came across this article Frankenweenie Footage Screened

Of course footage from Frankenweenie gets screened at this weekend's Disney D23 Expo. But at this weekend's Fest could we even get so much as a glimpse of even one photo of one of the main stars of the Depp/DS film? Nooooooo. But I'm not bitter. Nope. Not at all. 

263 days 13 hours 50 minutes 13 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!