Tim Burton and Johnny Depp to begin filming 'Dark Shadows' movie fall 2010

It’s been several months since the first murmurings of a Tim Burton-directed Dark Shadows film first hit the web. Just yesterday though, Sci Fi Wire was able to confirm that this highly anticipated project would indeed go in front of cameras when they caught up with producer Graham King. King confirmed both that Tim Burton was attached to direct and that Johnny Depp would play the role of the vampire Barnabas Collins.

The original Dark Shadows was a macabre daytime soap opera that ran for over 1200 episodes from 1966 until 1971. When the film was first announced, Depp admitted that he was a fan of the show growing up. Dark Shadows had the same twisting plotlines and convoluted relationships that soap operas in general are known for, but was filmed in a dark gothic aesthetic and more often than not those plotlines involved vampires, werewolves, and other horror standbys.

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have worked together on many projects including the upcoming Alice in Wonderland. The script for Dark Shadows, which is now undergoing a few minor tweaks, was written by another longtime Burton collaborator, John August. Together, the writer and director have worked on Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish, and Frankenweenie, the feature-length adaptation of one of Burton’s early short films currently in preproduction.

According to Graham King, Dark Shadows is likely to shoot in either September or October of 2010. Depending on how Burton shoots the film, post-production could be a drawn out or relatively short process. There’s the potential for a lot of digital effects, which, as we saw with The Wolf Man, can drag out post-production. On the other hand though, this is precisely the sort of project that might benefit from a back-to-basics approach with the same shoestring practical effects used on the original show (much like the filmmakers chose to do on House of the Wolf Man). It’ll be interesting to see which direction Dark Shadows goes, but either way Burton is almost certainly the man for the job.