First Official DARK SHADOWS Image Shows Off Tim Burton's Cast

Is this a new version of The Munsters or a remake of The Addams Family? No it's the latest kooky and strange Tim Burton movie, the currently filming Dark Shadows!

By Matt Holmes /

Is this a new version of The Munsters or a remake of The Addams Family? No it's the latest kooky and strange Tim Burton movie, the currently filming Dark Shadows that has an official first look reveal over at Entertainment Weekly. It also gives us a much better look at the film than those rather worrisome set photos of Johnny Depp that surfaced a month ago which made him look like a pale faced Michael Jackson. The image above makes him resemble the classic Universal horror actor Lon Chaney. The image itself gives us only a hint at the Gothicness that will be on display when the film opens next May and it's rather surprisingly tame at first glance compared to his recent efforts but the Burtoness is still very evident in the physical appearance of Helena Bonham Carter with her over the top hairstyle again making her look more like a porcelain doll than a human being as she did in Alice in Wonderland. There's something very strange about Burton that he consistently makes his partner look as weird and unattractive as he can on film. The image also shows us a very different looking Eva Green (I never expected her part, that of a witch, to be blonde) and strangely has Depp, the marquee of the picture, as far back into the background as possible. Dark Shadows centers on Barnabas Collins, a playboy who breaks the heart of a witch (Green) in 1752, and is proof that you should never scorn a woman, she turns him into a vampire and buries him alive. He wakes in 1972 and returns to his estate tortured and searching for his long lost love. He is owner of a large estate€ but our lead character and entry vehicle into this weird world is Bella Heathcote as Victoria Winters, the young lady who becomes the Governess of the Collins household because she resemblances the vampire€™s long lost love. Michelle Pfeiffer (the matriarch of the estate in Collins€™ absence), Jackie Earle Haley (as a con artist), Chloe Moretz, Thomas McDonnell, Johnny Lee Miller and David Selby also feature. Seth Grahame-Smith (who wrote the twisted Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter €“ and is now writing a new Beetlejuice movie) €“ wrote the freshest draft of the supernatural screenplay. All the staples of the Tim Burton formula are here as the show regularly featured werewolves, ghosts, zombies, man-made monsters and witches, and it€™s use of atmosphere and outlandish characters was it€™s hallmark. Though with this kind of show, anything is fair game, such as time travel, zombies, anything. I€™m not sure there are rules to it€ What do you make of the first image?