Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!!

Does anyone know if Thomas McDonell filmed any scenes as the younger Barnabas? They made such a big deal out of casting him that it was surprising not to see him in the film.

I'm pretty sure that both MB and I had recalled hearing a comment from McDonell (either a tweet or in an interview or something) that he had completed filming his part for DS.  I do not remember a source of this; perhaps MB does.  That would imply that scene(s) were filmed but ultimately cut out.  I'd been hoping to find out why.  I wonder if there was going to be a scene with a younger Barnabas and Angelique, to bridge between the time they were children and the time when they were getting hot and steamy.  Maybe they felt it wasn't necessary, and Barn and Ang are both still fairly young (or at least they both LOOK really young!) when the curse occurs.  However, I would've liked to see a tiny bit more history between them, just to flesh out why she felt so darn slighted.  It wouldn't have had to be much, but just a taste of them having this history.  I wonder if either the DVD or McDonell himself will ever address this publicly.

(In the case of Sweeney Todd, Christopher Lee was going to be in it, as part of a "ghost chorus"- they were going to sing the Ballad of Sweeney Todd and such, but sadly, the part and that whole aspect was cut before it was ever filmed.  Luckily, one of Lee's relatives (nephew, I think??) who runs his website explained that it was cut and that Christopher understood and was okay with it, and I believe that Burton and even Stephen Sondheim spoke about it later.  However, in this case, I haven't heard a similar discussion yet explaining McDonell's absence    )

in addition to mcdonell's sudden and unexplained departure i don't recall ever hearing a word about yet a third six year old barnabas until literally days before the film opened.

when the early synopsis was released it was my impression that it was mcdonell's teenage barnabas, and not a six year old, that left liverpool with his family.

three different actors playing the same character is alot. the whole thing was handled strangely.

Interesting, very interesting. I wonder if the footage with Thomas was reshot with Johnny Depp or just eliminated.

There were definitely tweets from Thomas McDonell about his work on the movie in London.  I remember there being mention of his work coming at the end of the filming schedule. 

I would guess that his material did not even make it into Burton's final cut, so it is unlikely (IMO) that his footage will make it into the "deleted scenes" on the Blu Ray (which I expect to contain the material Graham-Smith mentioned in that interview).  But who knows. 

I heard that the WB suits have claimed that for the Avengers disc, deleted scenes will only be included on the Blu Ray release, btw.  I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens with Depp Shadows.  I presume that Warners owns the company that manufactures Blu Ray players or has some kind of interest in the sale of same.

cheers, G.

It's quite often the case that deleted scenes only show up on the Blu-ray. And initially Seth Grahame-Smith only mentioned the Blu-ray release when the subject of deleted scenes came up. But in subsequent interviews he's mentioned the DVD as well, so who knows? We'll see...

As for Thomas McDonell, when I get the chance I'll check the production topic - but as madscntst and Gothick have also said, it certainly seems as if there was something that confirmed he actually shot scenes.

And when it comes to the Warner Brothers Press Release, it most definitely gave an impression of a different timeframe for the events in the 18th century than what's in the finished film. The timeframe would certainly appear to have been tweeked at some point after the press release came out.

And there definitely were reshoots in September '11 because one of the extras who worked on the film tweeted that he was hoping to get more work on them. But we've never heard what was actually reshot.

23 days 17 hours 4 minutes 15 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

DS worldwide is up to $191 million plus. I would guess once it crosses the 200 million mark the studio will release a statement or at least acknowledge it in some way. What we may never know is how much it cost the studio to market it. The industry has John Carter costing over 100 million to market in addition to its huge budget. http://www.rentrak.com/section/corporate/press_room/weekly_top_10_charts.html

oh if i have to shell out $$$ to upgrade to a blue-ray setup just to get a couple deleted scenes i'm going to be SO annoyed.

i hope it's on DVD too.

The publicity material also made much noise about Barnabas being some kind of playboy, which, besides his "dalliance" (love that word) with Angelique, we didn't see much of.  Personally, I wish we'd seen Barnabas acting as more of the upstanding citizen -- "a good man and a Collins" -- Elizabeth seems to believe he was.

Curiouser and curiouser. It would be nice to see a script. It's probably just a matter of time before KLS publishes it!

i thought most dvds released these days gave u both blu ray and regular dvd versions and even a digital download copy of the movie? im just going by the ads i see on tv.

i thought most dvds released these days gave u both blu ray and regular dvd versions and even a digital download copy of the movie? im just going by the ads i see on tv.

Disney's Blu-rays have mostly been including the DVD and digital download, and now it looks like HBO is doing it as well. But there are also DVD-only copies sold (but not Blu-ray-only). I'm not aware of other companies that are routinely doing it. I'm quite sure it's still only a minority of the Blu-ray releases that include DVD.

Even if the packaging includes both the Blu-ray and the DVD, the Blu-ray only extras aren't on the DVD because, well, they're Blu-ray only extras.    So that sort of packaging won't help DS fans without Blu-ray players if there are Blu-ray only extras when the film comes out. 

I'm sure that, when it comes to people who don't have a Blu-ray player but who plan to buy one eventually, it's nice to get both in one package because then they can at least watch the DVD version, and then when they get their Blu-Ray player, they'll already have the Blu-ray version. However, most Blu-ray player owners that I know, myself included, prefer to buy the Blu-ray only package, if one is available, because the DVD will probably never get played. And it's somewhat aggravating whenever there is no Blu-ray only version released because more often than not you have to pay extra for something you're never going to use. About the only time it's less aggravating is when one side of the disc is Blu-ray and the other side is DVD because in those cases they don't tend to cost more. But in my experience, many times the Blu-ray and the DVD are separate discs. 

And this is more OT than not so I'll keep it as brief as possible, but while it was at 56% discount last week, I ordered the Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy of the 4th season of True Blood from Amazon because there isn't any Blu-ray only set. However, I paid the same price for it as I paid for the 3rd season Blu-ray only set, so I'm presuming it's going to be Blu-ray on one side and DVD on the other. But it's going to be very interesting if it isn't...

23 days 21 hours 26 minutes 52 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

Hopefully when DS is released it does have options and t doesn't just come out in a combo pack or just on DVD. I have a blu ray player and that's what I like to buy. When I went to target the other day I was surprised that The Woman in Black didn't have a blu ray version and was only on DVD.

The Woman in Black has a Blu-ray version. Maybe it was just sold out. However, when it comes to the extras, they're the same on both - and no deleted scenes. 


But getting back on topic - and speaking of deleted scenes - I'm quite surprised that no one has mentioned that there are moments in the trailers/TV Spots for the DS film that aren't actually in the film. I haven't gone back through all the trailers/TV Spots (because frankly I still haven't gotten over trailers/TV Spots overload), but I immediately noticed two examples the first time I saw the film. Hasn't anyone else noticed?

24 days 11 hours 2 minutes 6 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

Yes.  Willie's crack about "You'll have to excuse him, he's English," or something to that effect, didn't make the final cut.  Willie looks as though he's speaking to someone as he sits in a car.  I assume he's excusing some odd behavior of Barnabas'.

Petofi