Pictures revealing the manor’s entryway and grand staircase have a distinctly old-school Tim Burton feel. By John Mitchell Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer in “Dark Shadows” Photo: Warner Bros. Here we are again, folks. We’re about two months away from the release of “Dark Shadows” and we still don’t have a trailer . It’s a little disconcerting that a film this big and anticipated doesn’t have an official trailer out yet. But since there’s not much we can do about that, let’s talk about the latest thing to creep into the Shadowsverse this week: pictures of Collinwood Manor. For those unfamiliar with the ’60s soap, the manor is the principal setting for the action of “Shadows.” When Barnabas (Johnny Depp) returns to Collinwood in 1972 after, you know, a few centuries buried in a mausoleum, he finds the once-grand estate in disrepair. His dysfunctional descendents who now reside at the grand manor haven’t fared much better. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) has brought psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) to live at Collinwood to help with her with her family’s assorted troubles, including her rebellious teenage daughter, Carolyn (Chlo
Vanity Fair character portraits prove Tim Burton is sticking with the aesthetic of the ’60s series. By John Mitchell Johnny Depp in “Dark Shadows” Photo: Warner Bros Another week has passed, and we still don’t have a “Dark Shadows” trailer . For those keeping tabs, we’re just over two months out (70 days, to be exact) from the scheduled release of Tim Burton’s campy vampire blockbuster. But to whet increasingly impatient fans’ appetites, in this month’s Vanity Fair, Burton and company have released some character portraits of Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Eva Green as Angelique Bouchard and Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman. The images — which are not yet available on Vanity Fair ‘s website but you can see here — are nothing we haven’t seen before. But hey, at least it means Warner Bros. is doing some promo, right? Taking a close look at the portraits — and, really, we might as well, because there isn’t much other “DS” material to stan over — it’s striking just how closely Burton and costume designer Colleen Atwood have kept Depp’s big-screen styling to the Barnabas “Shadows” series creator Dan Curtis developed for actor Jonathan Frid all the way back in 1967. The more we see of Depp in character, the more we’re reminded of Frid, who also appears in the film. “Johnny’s very open about what things are in the process, but he really lets people present things to him. He never really pushes at all,” Atwood told MTV News late last year about Depp’s costuming for “Shadows.” “Sometimes he doesn’t even look in the mirror in his fittings. It’s so funny. It’s pretty amazing. People would be surprised, because I think they have this image of Johnny, because he’s so stylish always, but he really feels his costumes, more than looks at them, and the movement and the feeling in them is really important.” From the hair and pale, monstrous makeup to the penchant for 18th-century bling, it’s kind of amazing how closely Burton is hewing to the look already established for the characters in the late-’60s series. And that’s true of nearly all the key players in his adaptation: He’s taken famed brunette Eva Green blonde, as Angelique (played by Lara Parker) was on the show, given Bonham Carter’s eccentric Dr. Julia Hoffman the same sweeping ’60s ‘do worn by Grayson Hall and has Pfeiffer sporting dark, regal ensembles similar to those worn by Joan Bennett to play Elisabeth Collins Stoddard. One notable exception is Chlo
‘She’s an alcoholic psychiatrist, so I hadn’t played that before,’ actress tells MTV News. By John Mitchell Helena Bonham Carter Photo: WireImage We’re still waiting for a teaser trailer for the hottest vampire movie that doesn’t sparkle in the sun. Details about “Dark Shadows” have been scant, but one of the film’s stars is finally talking about her role and what inspired director Tim Burton to take on the project. At this week’s BAFTA Britannia Awards, MTV News spoke to two-time Oscar nominee Helena Bonham Carter about “Shadows,” her role in the film and what made her real-life love Burton want to director the vampire epic, which is set to hit theaters May 11, 2012. “I love ‘Dark Shadows.’ It’s very original. It’s uncategorizable,” Bonham Carter said. “It’s going to be impossible to sell, frankly, because it’s just so … it’s a soap opera but it’s very, very subtle. It’s a ghost story but then it’s an unhappy vampire story. It’s a mixture of so many different things and a real ensemble piece. And hopefully it will be funny.” Bonham Carter plays Dr. Julia Hoffman. In the late-’60s television soap opera on which the movie is based, Hoffman specialized in psychology and rare blood disorders and eventually tried to cure Barnabas Collins (played in the film by Burton regular Johnny Depp ) of his vampirism by injecting him with a vaccine made of healthy plasma to counteract the destruction of his own blood cells by the vampire cells. (Got that?) Whether that’s part of the film’s plot remains to be seen, but Bonham Carter did have a colorful response for MTV News when asked about playing Hoffman. “I did love playing her. I mean, she’s an alcoholic psychiatrist, so I hadn’t played that before,” she said. “And she’s got a secret. They all have secrets.” She also explained that “Shadows” has long been something of a passion project for Burton, with whom she has two children, because the quirky director was a huge fan of the TV show as a child. “This was a thing that he raced home to see when he was about age 10,” she told MTV. “So it was returning to his childhood roots of what he loved watching.” The always outrageous actress was also pretty frank about her own feelings about the campy soap, saying, “It’s actually a really bad, hilariously bad soap opera. And because it’s so bad, [Burton] felt he had to make a hugely expensive movie.” Are you excited to see Helena Bonham Carter bring new life to quirky psychologist Julia Hoffman in the big-screen adaptation of “Dark Shadows”? Sound off in the comments below and tweet me at @JohnMitchell83 with your thoughts and suggestions for future columns! Check out everything we’ve got on “Dark Shadows.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
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