Now this is turning out to be quite the cast for Dark Shadows. Tim Burton, aside for hiring his usual cohorts Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, has managed to round up Johnny Lee Miller as well as the previously reported Chloe Moretz, Jackie Earle Haley, Eva Green and Michelle Pfeiffer. Not too shabby a find.
We’ve also been given the first official synopsis. I’m sincerely hoping the Burton that shows up to direct this one is the same Burton that managed to make all those classics from the 80s and 90s. The Burton that’s been hanging around since 2001 has been Tim Burtoning himself into an almost Tyler Perry-like state. Ooh, sick burn.
Read on below for the plot synopsis:
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.
Source: IndieWire
