From visionary director Tim Burton
comes the big-screen adaptation of the TV vampire classic “Dark Shadows”
featuring an all-star cast, led by perennial collaborator Johnny Depp.
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| Johnny Depp as Barnabas |
The
film also stars Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Jonny Lee
Miller, Jackie Earle Haley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Victoria Winters and Gully
McGrath.
“Dark
Shadows” begins in the year 1752, when Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son
Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Depp) has the world at his feet—or
at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor,
Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave
mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Green). A witch, in every
sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him
into a vampire, and then burying him alive.
Two
centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into
the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his
once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the
Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets.
Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in
psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Bonham Carter), to help with her family
troubles.
The
film marks Depp’s eighth collaboration with visionary filmmaker Tim Burton, who
most recently reimagined Lewis Caroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” also starring
the actor. Burton remembers the original “Dark Shadows” TV series as a
childhood obsession and constant distraction from his homework. “I just loved
the tone of it,” the director recalls. “It was about the music and languid pace
and how seriously the actors took it. It was basically a soap opera, but with a
supernatural undercurrent to it, which made it very different. It was like a
weird kind of nightmare in the mid-afternoon. There was nothing quite like it.”
Their
goal from the beginning was to honor the Dan Curtis-created series while making
an original film with a contemporary sensibility. Legendary producer Richard
D.Zanuck, who marks his sixth collaboration with Burton, was thrilled with the
filmmaker’s take on the world of “Dark Shadows.” “The tone encapsulates a lot
of humor, a lot of compassion, and although there’s blood, it’s hardly a
typical vampire movie,” Zanuck says. “There are eccentric characters, and it’s
a little off-center, a little over the top, and very much Tim Burton. You probably
hear this a lot, and it always sounds disingenuous to say, but this movie has
something for everyone. It’s got very passionate, operatic moments,
heartbreaking tragedy, romance, terror and this unexpected humor.”
“When the script came in, you could
see what an incredibly fun ride it was going to be,” adds Oscar-winning
producer Graham King. “But then you add the layer of Tim Burton’s magical
directing and this incredible cast. Tim is also being very respectful of the
series because we’re all cognizant that there are a lot of `Dark Shadows’ fans
out there. He’s making a film that is as unique as the series was, but it’s
obviously made for today’s audiences. It’s big in scope, and really, really
funny.”
David
Kennedy, who produces along with Zanuck, King, Depp and Christi Dembrowski, was
the producing partner of television icon Dan Curtis, who created “Dark Shadows”
and introduced television audiences for the first time to a sexy, sympathetic
vampire protagonist. “There was never a vampire on television until Barnabas
Collins,” Kennedy relates. “And one of the things that makes Barnabas so
different is that he doesn’t like being a vampire, but he knows he’s condemned
to be one forever, so he’s an enormously sympathetic character. And what’s
thrilling about the movie is that it’s absolutely loyal to the key characters,
but it’s an original take on the series.”
Opening
across the Philippines on May 10, “Dark Shadows” is distributed by Warner Bros.
Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.
