A little late to the vampire party is Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, who will try to drain every last drop of blood from the moribund subgenre in DARK SHADOWS nex year. And with filming set to commence this April, Burton and company are starting to fill in supporting roles. Newly emerging names? Why Jackie Earle Haley (right) and Bella Heathcote (below)!
Deadline posits Earle Haley is set to play Willie Loomis, a notorious con artist who comes to Collinwood bent on swindling the reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. He winds up living in the mansion and hatches a plan when he observes a portrait of the late Barnabas Collins (Depp), who wore some serious bling. Loomis breaks into the mausoleum and pries open Barnabas’ coffin expecting to steal jewelry, he’s given the shock of his life when he’s attacked by the vampire and rendered the servant and whipping boy of the bloodsucker.
Haha, sounds like Haley’s gonna have a lot of fun!
As far as Heathcote is concerned, she’s in line to play Victoria Winters, young governess of the Collins Estate. Quite a coup for the youngster, as it seems she just lost out to Kristen Stewart in that f*ckin’ Snow White movie. Oh well, I’m sure trading Dwarves for Depp isn’t something she’s complaining about (although, isn’t Depp like 5’9? Never mind!)
For those as late to the bash as Depp and Burton, DARK SHADOWS was a 1960s TV soap that centered on the 175-year-old vampire Barnabas Collins, sealed in his coffin by his father in 1795 and inadvertently unleashed in the present where he must adjust to an entirely new world while passing himself off to relatives in Collinwood, Maine as a cousin from England.
So Haley and Heathcote in DARK SHADOWS! You diggin’ it or what?
DARK SHADOWS hits sometime in 2012.
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