Seth Grahame-Smith Joins Dark Shadows Remake

When we did our “evolution of the vampire” feature a few weeks ago, readers were nearly unanimously irritated that we left out one particular bloodsucker: Barnabas Collins.

It appears as though we may have underestimated Collins’ power, but luckily for all you Dark Shadows fans (or maybe unluckily for the purists), Tim Burton didn’t. The dashing leading vamp who turned Collinsport, Maine upside-down in the ’60s and ’70s will be returning from the (un)dead in a Burton-helmed, Warner Bros.-distributed film based on the popular supernatural soap.

Johnny Depp, Burton’s longtime muse, is slated to play Collins. Deadline.com reports filmmakers have signed on Seth Grahame-Smith, the writer of such modern monstrous classics as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, to write the next draft of the screenplay.

Burton and Timur Bekmambetov are adapting Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter into a live-action flick.

Burton’s Dark Shadows adaptation is set to begin filming in January.

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