Dark Shadows Marooned by Pirates

Some bad news from Entertainment Weekly: the proposed Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie Dark Shadows looks to be on permament hold. The project has been pushed into the long grass because there are now plans for Depp to appear yet again as Captain Jack Sparrow in a fourth installment of the Pirates series. Given that so far each Pirates movie has been worse than the previous one this news doesn’t exactly fill me with joy.

Dark Shadows was, of course, a famous or infamous TV series from the 1960s. Back then there was no time for retakes so it’s full of fluffed lines and malfunctioning scenery. Yet it still gained cult status, especially after it mutated from sub-standard daytime soap into a fully fledged vampire and monster infested gothic delight.

Dark Shadows is a show that – unlike some – is well suited to a big screen remake and a Depp-Burton partnership would have been fascinating. Unfortunately it doesn’t now look like it’s going to happen any time soon.