First Look At Johnny Depp On The Set Of Dark Shadows

The first photos of Johnny Depp playing Barnabas Collins in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows have been released. Depp, who is currently working on his eighth collaboration with Burton, has been in England shooting since May, when production began.

Dark Shadows is based on a 1960’s Vampire soap opera television series which stared Jonathan Frid in the role of Barnabas Collins. The photos of Depp look very obscure, but most of his outfits in Tim Burton films do, and when you’re playing a vampire I guess all bets are off.

This project has been a passion of Depp and Burton’s for some time, so it’s great to see it finally get rolling. The synopsis for the film is a big one, but it reads as follows:

“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 (Johnny Depp) 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 Bouchard (Eva Green). 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 (Helena Bonham Carter), to help with her family troubles.

Also residing in the manor is Elizabeth’s ne’er-do-well brother, Roger Collins, (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Moretz); and Roger’s precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gulliver McGrath). The mystery extends beyond the family, to caretaker Willie Loomis, played by Jackie Earle Haley, and David’s new nanny, Victoria Winters, played by Bella Heathcote.”

Dark Shadows stars Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter, Jackie Earle Haley, Chloe Moretz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, Gulliver McGrath and Bella Heathcote, who can be seen in the images with Depp.

Dark Shadows is set for release on 11 May 2012.