Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have been developing an adaptation of the odd ’60s soap opera “Dark Shadows” and so far there hasn’t been much news on the big project. However, Depp and his collaboration team recently spoke on the film and what a difficult task it has been.
“It’s one thing to adapt a weekly television series into a movie — it’s another thing to take a soap opera that’s been serialized daily and try to boil it down to two hours,” said Sam Sarkar, Depp’s producing partner.
Just to get an idea of how difficult it is turning this show into a movie – there are over 1000 episodes, which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, incorporating everything from vampires and ghosts to time-travel and zombies. But that’s not where the hardships end, there’s also, as director Tim Burton put it, the difficulty of “captur[ing] that weird tone of the show.”
Depp himself faces the intimidating challenge of portraying Barnabas Collins, the unique vampire and the star of the show. Though he’s wanted to play Barnabas since he was a kid, Depp is still in the process of figuring out just how to show off this character on the big screen.
“He’s coming around,” Depp said recently. “He’s a guy who I think is going to be very interesting. He’s going to be a lot of fun in a very outside and strange way. I’m excited.”
Production on the film is expected to begin next spring, until then Burton, Depp and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) are trying to figure out the script. Even though it’s a tough task, Burton said last month that he’s liking how the whole thing is coming together.
“I’m working on the script, and it’s been kind of a long time coming, but I think I’m getting a script that I like,” he said. I don’t really like talking because I’m not really sure what’s happening yet, but I’m excited about it. I think, yes, finally for me, it’s getting to be the right tone.”
– Moonlight
Yess! Dark Shadows! Keep your True Blood or Vampire diaries or that awful Buffy!