With the heavily panned and ...
Johnny Depp
Question: With the heavily panned and commercial disaster of the new
X-Files theatrical movie, it makes me truly wonder if
Johnny Depp can pull a miracle and make the new theatrical version of
Dark Shadows into a very good movie and one that is a commercial success. In addition, the original
Dark Shadows television series has been off the air since 1971 and the revival series ended in 1991. Based on the fact that
The X-Files has been off the air for only six years and had a poor box office, do you think Depp can actually bring in millions of new and old(er) fans to the big screen after all these years since
Dark Shadows has seen the light of day on television?
Answer: An interesting question, and one that taps into the very core of my cult upbringing, having been a big fan of the daytime
Dark Shadows as a kid. But these are such different franchises and such different challenges in translating them to the big screen. The
X-Files movie needed to stay true to the series and core characters, which it did (that's the upside of the movie), but lost its way by miring these characters in an uninspired story. Whereas the
Dark Shadows movie has the opportunity to completely recharge and reinvent the notion of an erotically charged (I'm hoping) Gothic vampire soap. Casting Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins seems genius to me, and as long as some of the more iconic trappings of the original series are adhered to, I'm thinking this movie has an almost blank canvas to work upon. That, if executed properly, could result in a popular hit that could reintroduce the premise to a new audience who would never sit still for the now-primitive original (talk about your TV classics that don't live up to your original perception) and remind those of us who were there at the time why we loved
Dark Shadows in the first place.
