We've been wondering how Tim Burton was planning to compress over 1,200 "Dark Shadows" episodes into one feature film. The answer, it seems, is to keep some things the same while also taking great creative liberties.
To wit, while Johnny Depp told us his take on Barnabas — the vampire at the center of the '60s-era supernatural soap — won't stray far from the character pioneered by Jonathan Frid on the TV series, co-star Eva Green's Angelique will be a far different creation than the one Lara Parker portrayed back in the day.
"I haven't seen the TV series, but from what I've seen on the Internet, it's very different. My character is very different. She's American, blonde, cool, in the '70s," Green told MTV News. "She is this sexy witch, very powerful in town, she's very cool. She has many faces."
Note that she said "the '70s." It seems Burton is going to keep the TV series' general time frame, rather than zooming forward to the present day (though, of course, the series made copious use of time travel as a storytelling device). Indeed, an ongoing question about "Dark Shadows" is how closely Burton will stick to the show's original tone, which veered from campy melodrama to deadly serious storytelling. Will the movie be closer in tone to, say, the darkness of "Sleepy Hollow" or the poppy pleasure of "Alice in Wonderland"? According to Green, "Dark Shadows" is going to be Burton unlike we've ever seen him.
"It's something that he's never done, I think," she said. "It's much more focused on the actors. It could almost be a play."
Green and Burton met three times about the project, the actress told us, but she never had to audition. "We talked a lot about the role. But I didn't have to read. It was a miracle," she laughed.
Green and Depp haven't yet discussed the film, but she expects rehearsals to begin next month. "The script is very powerful and funny," she said. "[Angelique's] relationship with Barnabas, that 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' relationship, very love-hate — it's very funny."
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