Filming begins on Tim Burton's 'Dark Shadows'

Filming has begun on Tim Burton's film adaptation of the Gothic soap opera "Dark Shadows starring Johnny Depp.

Johnanthan Frid

Warner Bros. issued a press release today about the film, which will be shot entirely in England.

The original series ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971 and featured a wide variety of supernatural storylines, including vampires, witches, time travel and parallel universes. It's most famous character was Barnabas Collins (Johnathan Frid), who will be played by Depp in the Burton's film.

Warner Bros. provided the following plot synopsis for the film:

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 Brouchard (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.

This is not the first "Dark Shadows" remake. NBC hosted a short-lived series in 1991, but it was canceled after only one season. A pilot was filmed for a second revival in 2004 for The WB, but it wasn't picked up.

Between its very successful original run and years of repeats on Syfy and other networks, "Dark Shadows" has a solid following, and the series is now available on DVD. As with most remakes, however, it's unclear how fan will treat a big-budget remake.