Does it really surprise anyone that Tim Burton would take a low-budget, mid-60’s gothic horror soap opera and bring it to the big screen? That’s exactly what he did with Dark Shadows, which made its way into theaters Friday.
The movie brought in $9.7 million on its opening day, according to estimates by Box Office Mojo, good for second place.
The hugely popular superhero film The Avengers continued to dominate the rest of the field, bringing in $29.1 millon Friday.
Based on the soap opera of the same name, the film is about Barnabus Collins, a rich playboy turned into a vampire in the late 1700’s by an evil witch. After being buried alive, he is accidentally released into the very different world of 1972.
Once free, he makes his way to his old home, Collinswood Manor, only to find it in ruin. Once at his former estate he meets his descendants, a dysfunctional family with their own secrets and issues. Appalled by what he sees, restoring his family name becomes his main goal.
If you’ve seen the trailers for this movie, you know that this is no soap opera.
Burton takes the original television show and converts it into an over-the-top comedy. In the trailers, we see Collins mystified by the culture of 1972, from the technology to the slang. Johnny Depp displays his familiar, yet still entertaining, comedic wit as the culture shocked Collins, hilariously making his transition from the 1770’s into the 1970’s.
What’s also familiar is seeing Depp in a Tim Burton film. Dark Shadows marks the 8th film the dynamic duo has worked on together. Their other films include 1990’s Edward Scissorhands, 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, and 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, among others.
Despite having a household name such as Depp in the lead role, and featuring the likes of Michelle Pfiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, and Chloë Grace Moretz, Dark Shadows is receiving generally mixed reviews.
Reviews on Metacritic.com have the film rated 56 out of 100, while RottenTomatoes.com show critics giving it an average rating of 41%.
