Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!!

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Well that is the description that has been used on IMDB from the beginning.  And while I am fairly sure it's not accurate (about the werewolves at least), I at least know where it came from.  The other part is really random. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It's definitely not accurate - and one would presume or at least hope that an official document would not rely on inaccurate info on IMDb but on factual info provided by the studio. And as it doesn't, it makes me question everything about the synopsis as well as who it was who typed up what's on Facebook. It's like just some random person not really connected to the film gathered the info about the test screening's time/location and then added the synopsis to it based on whatever they could find on the Internet.

59 days 21 hours 25 minutes 48 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Gothick]

Did you guys read the dialogue transcription from the long trailer seen by the Ross person?

There was no doubt in my mind that that was intended to be a trailer for a product in the "horror comedy" category.

Elsewhere I said that the dialogue read like the work of one of Sasha Baron Cohen's staff writers.

cheers, G.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

It's definitely not accurate - and one would presume or at least hope that an official document would not rely on inaccurate info on IMDb but on factual info provided by the studio. And as it doesn't, it makes me question everything about the synopsis as well as who it was who typed up what's on Facebook. It's like just some random person not really connected to the film gathered the info about the test screening's time/location and then added the synopsis to it based on whatever they could find on the Internet.

I totally agree!  And I was hoping someone who was invited could shed some light on the matter.  In the meantime, I guess we'll just have to wait a few days and see if any reports pop up telling us about the film's tone... 

Did you guys read the dialogue transcription from the long trailer seen by the Ross person?

There was no doubt in my mind that that was intended to be a trailer for a product in the "horror comedy" category.

Oh yes, G.  But I have also read a couple interviews since then and have walked away with the impression that this film is a mixed bag.  If the final product is indeed a collection of different moods/tones, I am interested in seeing which ones get hyped in the marketing.  We know that they are testing comedy trailers, but I am curious to see if the publicity will highlight the other aspects that are supposedly in the film.

[madscntst]

I'm at work, which firewalls us from Facebook, so I can't read the description there right now.  But the Barnabas "and his run ins with various monsters, witches, werewolves and ghosts" tagline has been around for a long time, and not just on IMDb, but other blogs and entertainment sites.  I think it was just a generic blurb that someone dreamed up to give people a general idea; I never took it literally.

Prof. Stokes, I'm so pleased to hear that you got passes for the screening!     I hope you will give your thoughts.  (And darn, I wish I lived on the other coast!  )  I have a friend who also knows 2 LA Depp fans who will be attending, so I hope that after tomorrow, we will have a better general idea of what to expect.

Initially, the recent release of several new photos was placating me to some extent about the fact that we haven't seen a trailer yet.  But we REALLY should've had a poster by now, at least.  Grrrrr.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'm actually wondering if people attending the test screening will have to sign confidentiality agreements? I have no idea if that's general practice or not. But in this particular case Burton has been so ultra-secretive about letting anything about the film out that I wouldn't put it past him not wanting any details about the film to leak two months before it even opens and before a final edit is possibly completed. So, it'll be very interesting to see...

59 days 12 hours 34 minutes 12 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Gothick]

It just hit me how weird it is that the first test screening is happening and there's NO mock-up poster on the Facebook announcement linked above.

I can understand (sort of) the delay in releasing the trailer, but why be so fussy about the poster? 

You would think they would at least have the standard DS logo bannering across the silhouette of Collinwood... how hard can this be??

Anyway, apologies for flogging a dead horse...

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Like I said, I'm honestly questioning who put together what's been posted on Facebook. It may be legit and was indeed put together by someone closely connected to the test screening. But the things lacking about it that you point out only seem to me to make its origin more questionable - particularly because, as you say, how hard would it have been just to put a logo on it...

59 days 11 hours 56 minutes 22 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[ProfStokes]

The "gothic comedy" description is on the screener ticket itself, but I don't know where the rest of the plot description came from.

It doesn't look like I will be attending the screening after all.  Registration is now closed.

ProfStokes

[Gothick]

That's too bad, Amanda.

Thanks for sharing the info with us.

Best, Steve

[jimbo]

Thanks ProfStokes for sharing the information.

I assume the description "gothic comedy" is from the studio. Then it must have a great deal of humor in it. I think they should have left out the word comedy and let the audience decide if it is funny. It doesn't matter. What done is done and I doubt TB is going to edit much of the movie based on a small sample of 300 people or so. Previously WB described it as a Gothic Thriller. The Thrill must be gone.

[madscntst]

I'm actually wondering if people attending the test screening will have to sign confidentiality agreements? I have no idea if that's general practice or not.

I've never had the privilege of attending a test screening, but I do believe it is common to have to sign a confidentiality agreement.  However, I believe that people are allowed to give general impressions and overall opinions- just no details.

Prof. Stokes, I'm so sorry to hear you won't be able to attend.  Anyway, we'll soon hear if we hear any feedback from the attendees.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I do believe it is common to have to sign a confidentiality agreement.  However, I believe that people are allowed to give general impressions and overall opinions- just no details.

So in other words we can look forward to people possibly saying they loved it or they hated it - but they can't tell us why. 

59 days 10 hours 56 minutes 54 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Previously WB described it as a Gothic Thriller. The Thrill must be gone.

Not neceassarily. Given the way the film has been described by the various people involved, it seems possible that it can be described in a variety of ways and each may be just as valid as the other. What does seem likely, though, is that Warner Brothers have definitely decided to promote the comedic aspects of the film over the other elements. And we won't know if that's a wise move or a misleading move until we've actually seen the film for ourselves - and we see how it does at the box office.

One thing that we really have to keep in mind is that studios market films in the ways they hope will get the most bodies into theaters. And those ways aren't always completely reflective of what a film is entirely like. One perfect example of that, and this is going back like 30 years, but it's quite an infamous example, is the marketing campaign for a Gene Hackman/Barbra Streisand film entitled All Night Long. The trailers/TV ads/posters all promoted the film as a whimsical comedy - but the film was actually more of a family drama with comedic elements to it. And once that fact became obvious, the entertainment press really began to rip into Universal for misrepresenting the film in its marketing campaign. It was not pretty.

Of course, I'm not saying that's what's going to happen with the DS film. We have no idea. But what I am saying is that just because it seems likely now that the film will be promoted as a comedy, that doesn't mean there's still much more to it than only its comedic elements...

59 days 10 hours 41 minutes 52 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!

[KMR]

I've never had the privilege of attending a test screening, but I do believe it is common to have to sign a confidentiality agreement.  However, I believe that people are allowed to give general impressions and overall opinions- just no details.

I've only attended one test screening, for Far From Heaven, in Chicago.  We had questionnaires to fill out, but there was no confidentiality agreement.  (There was also a select number of people in the audience who had been also chosen to be a focus group, taking part in a discussion after the screening; it would have been fun to be in that group, but I was not one of the chosen...)  I thought the movie was pretty bad during that test screening, but the final film actually turned out to be quite good.  It's amazing how something can be improved by doing what might appear to be tiny and/or inconsequential edits, using the final music score instead of a temporary score, doing final color correction, etc.  For instance, one of my several problems with the film was the inclusion of a voiceover by Julianne Moore at the beginning and the ending of the film; I complained about it on the questionnaire, and was happy to see it gone in the released version.  Another problem I had was with a scene that got really big laughs--not in a good way--and played like something out of the SNL skit of Siskel & Ebert reviewing a gay porn film.  It played much better in the final version.