Warner Brothers has released a couple of new images of Johnny Depp (it is him I swear) as Barnabas Collins in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows.  Actually in the second pic you can tell it's him, albeit 'Burton-ed' up. He looks like a cross between Jack Skellington, Max Schreck and Jonathan Frid. Spot on, in my opinion is Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard.  Filmed in a remote area of Surrey (standing in for coastal Maine) in England, the script is by first-time Burton collaborator Seth Grahame-Smith (author of the "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter" and "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" novels). Based on the Gothic television show from the 60's, Dark Shadows has had big screen adaptations before, as well as an updated tv version in the late 90's with Ben Cross. (It only lasted one season, but I really liked it.) Burton's film will be less a remake than a re-imagining.  Eva Green will play the witch Angelique. Burton's life partner, baby mommy and frequent collaborator Helena Bonham Carter will appear as Dr. Julia Hoffman.

Here's the official synopis Warner's released back in April:

"In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas 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 Brouchard. 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 (Michelle Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman, to help with her family troubles."

Overall, I think Burton looks to be paying homage to the goth classic series, and as someone who used to race home to see the black and white television show after school, I’m really looking forward to it.

The rest of the cast includes Chloe Moretz (Carolyn Stoddard), Gulliver McGrath (David Collins), Bella Heathcote (Victoria Winters), Ray Shirley (Mrs. Johnson), Jackie Earle Haley (Willie Loomis) and Jonny Lee Miller (Roger Collins).

Dark Shadows bows in theaters on May 11.

To get your New Year started off right, we have a bunch of great new stills to share from movies you’ll be hearing more about in the coming months.

In no particular order:

This is the first official still from Ben Affleck’s Argo. Affleck both directs and stars in this period film set in the mid 70’s that revolves around the CIA’s risky plan to free six Americans who have taken refuge in the Canadian embassy in Tehran just as the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point. The cast also includes Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, Kyle Chandler and John Goodman. It’s set for a September 14 release in the US, 5 October in the UK. Affleck’s previous two directorial efforts (Gone Baby Gone, The Town) have both found their way onto my dvd shelf, the latter one of my favorite films of 2010. Argo is definitely on my must-see list for 2012.

Here’s a look at Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the set of Steven Spielberg’s 2012 Christmas release, Lincoln. This one does not hunt vampires, he merely guides the nation through the Civil War. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as the 16^th President, Gordon-Levitt plays one of his sons, Robert Todd Lincoln. (As a student of American History and a Civil War buff in particular, I am so EXCITED for this one! The cast is amazing, including Jared Harris, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Straithairn, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Walton Goggins, David Oyelowo and Sally Field, [as Mary Todd Lincoln. While DDL is age appropriate, my first thought is she’s a bit long in the tooth for this role. I could be wrong.] to name but a FEW.) It’s based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin (“Team of Rivals”) with a script by John Logan and Tony Kushner. I’ll wager this will be a MAJOR awards contender next year.

Jack the Giant Killer is a “modern day fairy tale in which the long-standing peace between men and giants is threatened, as a young farmer leads an expedition into the giants' kingdom in hopes of rescuing a kidnapped princess”. Here’s the first official image, of Nicholas Hoult as Jack in mid-climb of the ‘Magic Beanstalk’. The film, directed by Bryan Singer and costarring the likes of Ewan McGregor, Ian McShane, Stanley Tucci, Bill Nighy, Eddie Marsan and Ben Daniels (YAY! I’ve missed him since he left “Law & Order: UK”), is set for a June 15 release.

Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie is a remake of his own short from 1986, in which young Victor conducts a science experiment to bring his beloved dog Sparky back to life, only to face unintended, sometimes monstrous, consequences. The original has been expanded for a feature length format so look for the neighborhood kids to get into the act with their own pets. Sounds like Mary Shelly meets Stephen King filtered through the mind of Tim Burton. Frankenweenie, featuring the voices of  Winona Ryder, Martin Short, Martin Landau and Catherine O’Hara, gets an appropriate October 5 release.

Here’s a look at a film we haven’t talked about before. The Impossible, which stars Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, is  based on the true story “of a family caught, with tens of thousands of strangers, in the mayhem of one of the worst natural catastrophes of our time”, namely the tsunami that struck Thailand on December 26, 2004. The film marks the English-language debut of Juan Antonio Bayona(The Orphanage). (Ironically, there is a first trailer out there if you want to view it, but it’s dubbed in Spanish. I thought I’d wait for the English version before posting it.) I suspect we’ll talk a lot more about The Impossible before its release. Right now it only has a firm date of October 12 in Spain.

Enjoy the pics! Happy New Year!

We have some great new pics of the artisans in Tim Burton's studio working on his re-imagining of his 1984 short film Frankenweenie. Stop-motion fascinates me. The painstaking attention to detail, not to mention the patience required, must be astounding. The results, at least in the hands of Tim Burton (to be fair Aardman Studios is brills at it as well), usually are. Check out the pics below.

As I said before, when I heard that Burton was not only remaking his own (brilliant) film, but stretching it into a full length feature, I had to wonder why he'd want to mess with perfection?

Well, according to Producer Allison Abate who spoke with ShockTilYouDrop during a set-visit:

“Tim always wanted to make it into a feature and into an animated feature. We had to open the story up a little bit. Pretty much, the whole first act is like the short. We meet Victor and his beloved dog, Sparky. There’s a terrible car accident tragedy and the dog gets killed. Of course Victor, being a clever guy, figures out how to reincarnate him. Where the story diverges is that Victor is now desperate to keep his dog a secret. He doesn’t really know if what he’s done is a great thing. He doesn’t tell his parents and he doesn’t tell his school friends… Of course, the other kids at school get wind of it and kind of want in.”

Apparently this time there will be more than just Victor’s dog Sparky get the ‘reanimation’ treatment. Victor’s friends are all based on icons of classic horror films and each creates their own ‘monster’. In the pics, we can see sketches that point to everything from mummified hamsters to turtles with scales that resemble Japanese movie monster Gamera. Now that sounds funny. A reanimated turtle. How can you tell?

The really good news about any of this, for me, is that Frankenweenie reunites Burton with Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones (I thought he was in jail?), and the late Glenn Shadix, who all appeared in Beetlejuice. This is actually Burton's third collaboration with Ryder, who also starred alongside Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands. Of course, since Frankenweenie is stop-motion animation (the original short was live-action) like that seen in A Nightmare Before Christmas, only their voices will be featured, including the voice of another Burton alum, Martin Landau. 

Frankenweenie, which will be the second of two Burton films for 2012, after Dark Shadows opens in May, comes to theaters October 5.

Tim Burton got his own balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City yesterday.  Burton, who was at the parade with his children and his ‘baby-mama’ Helena Bonham Carter, unveiled “B. Boy” as part of the event's "Blue Sky Gallery" series, which invites artists to enter their personal concepts for the parade’s famous fleet of flying characters. Other artists who’ve participated include Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami.

“B. Boy” is 32 feet tall and 19 feet wide. He has a round blue head, a face covered in Burton’s signature surgical stitches and a mouth full of fang-like teeth that are apparent through his red-lipped smile and he wears a red and white striped jumpsuit. His “backstory” is that he was cobbled together from rejects of birthday party balloons left over from children's parties at a hospital. “B. Boy” (short for Balloon Boy) was not allowed to play with other kids so he withdrew to his basement home and into the world of his favorite film, The Red Balloon. He hoped that one day he too would be able to fly above the city and bring joy to one small child.

I think his dream came true yesterday.

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 (Michelle Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman, to help with her family troubles.”

Here’s a pic from the tv series:

The rest of the cast (and having grown up with Jonathan Frid as Barnabas and David Selby as Quentin, I’m liking these choices) includes Chloe Grace Moretz, Jackie Earle Haley (as Willie Loomis-inspired!), Jonny Lee Miller and this just in…Alice Cooper! No word yet on who will play Quentin (there is a cast listing for a “young Quentin” so this may be a clue as to what direction Burton will take the story).

Dark Shadows is scheduled to be released May 11, 2012.

Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, and Helena Bonham Carter attend the rainy premiere of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland at the Odeon in London, England today. There could be a hurricane and you can bet the fans would still come out in droves to see Johnny Depp.

Johnny’s children have seen the film he tells the press:

“My kids actually saw the film because I send them out there in the frontlines. They saw it – and they loved it.”

And don’t worry it’s not scary:

“They absolutely adored it. They loved every character. They weren’t freaked out by it whatsoever.”

And you must look at how sexy Avril Lavigne looked at the premiere.  Love that dress on her!

Will you be seeing Alice in Wonderland?  I think the trailers lo0k freaking awesome!

Pictures after the break

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