It’s been almost three years since we first heard that Johnny Depp would play self-loathing yet sympathetic bloodsucker Barnabas Collins in a big-screen version of the cult ’60s shock-soap DARK SHADOWS, directed by Tim Burton.
Those guys have obviously been pretty busy since then, but the project is still ever-so-slowly creeping out of the coffin. Writer Seth Grahame-Smith is the latest guy to take a stab at the adaptation, and he’s got some experience with horror thanks to his successful literary/historical monster mashups PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES and ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER (both of which are getting their own movie treatments).
Burton regular John August was the last writer on the movie.
The long-running show (over a thousand episodes) followed a Maine family dealing with bizarre and supernatural occurrences involving vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks and time travel. It was briefly resurrected and remade in the 1990s with Ben Cross as Barnabas, but a 2004 TV pilot (featuring hotties Kelly Hu, Jenna Dewan and Marley Shelton) didn’t get picked up for series.
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed