Vampire Paradise

NIGHT STALKER COMIC BOOK TRAILER

Moonstone Books has done a tremendous job of taking  Jeff Rice's Carl Kolchak, introduced in the 1970s via the TV movies The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler, as well as the weekly series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and continued his adventures as the reporter goes up against myriad supernatural threats. Below is a Moonstone-created trailer for their Kolchak comics.

JOHNNY DEPP AS BARNABAS COLLINS: LONG DISCUSSED ONLINE

It seems that the idea of Johnny Depp playing Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows has occurred to other people as well, as discovered by a petition started by www.petitiononline.com. That’s where the following was found:

---

To:  Tim Burton & Johnny Depp

   We, the undersigned, respectfully submit the following
to Director Tim Burton and Actor Johnny Depp:
   Gentlemen: your films Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood & Sleepy Hollow are superb examples of Gothic, fantastic cinema. We want to see more collaborative efforts on your parts.
   We ask that you both consider doing a big screen adaptation of the 1960s horror themed soap opera Dark Shadows, with Mr. Burton in the director's chair, co-writing and co-producing the film with Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis. We ask that Johnny Depp consider playing Dark Shadows' central character of Barnabas Collins.
   We feel that such a collaboration could revive the wonderful, well loved franchise that Dark Shadows is. We feel that the unique, brilliant vision of Mr. Burton and the breathtaking acting talents of Mr. Depp could not only revive Dark Shadows, but create a new and enduring film classic in its own right, a modern Gothic masterpiece.
There is a huge audience for Dark Shadows, gentlemen, and we have waited a long time for our show to return to us.
   We feel this may be of interest to you both as you have both been reported to be fans of Dark Shadows yourselves, and Mr. Depp has been quoted as saying that he'd like to play Barnabas Collins.
   We hope that you will take our request under consideration.
   Thank you.
   Sincerely,

   The Undersigned

Additionally, back in 2002, TVGuide.com reported that Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis had explored the possibility of Depp's interest in a feature film based on the classic soap opera.

JOHNNY DEPP IS BARNABAS COLLINS

Ever since he portrayed Captain Jack Sparrow, it seems highly unlikely that anyone thinks there’s a role that Johnny Depp can’t pull off, a point he drove home while portraying Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Well now Depp is about to make claim to one of his childhood heroes, vampire Barnabas Colllins.

   A lifelong fan of ABC’s 1966-71 soap opera Dark Shadows, which centered around the inadvertent resurrection of Barnabas Collins and his return to the family homestead, Collinwood, Depp has, according to Variety, just sealed a deal to portray Barnabas in a big screen version of the series. “A rights deal just closed with the estate of Dan Curtis, the producer/director who created the soap. Depp and Graham King [of GK Films] will produce with David Kennedy, who ran Dan Curtis Productions until Curtis died last year of a brain tumor.”

   Barnabas was originally played by Canadian actor Jonathan Frid on the soap and in the 1970 feature film, House of Dark Shadows. In 1991 NBC resurrected the show in a one-hour prime-time version with British actor Ben Cross as the fanged one. Unfortunately the show only lasted 13 episodes, falling victim to the Gulf War and the fact that nobody was watching the show due to war coverage. In 2004 the WB shot a pilot for a proposed new series that saw Alec Newman cast in the role of Barnabas, but that show never went to series – which was particularly painful to fans of Joss Whedon’s Angel. Rumor has it that the primary reason the WB cancelled that David Boreanaz series was because the network didn’t want two vampire shows on at the same time, and since they would own the rights to Dark Shadows (Fox owns Angel), it seemed like a better deal.

   What eccentric quality will Depp bring to the role of Barnabas? No one knows for sure, but since the character’s background had him chained in his coffin by his father in the mid 1790s and he was accidentally freed from that coffin by Willie Loomis in the present, one can assume that Depp will have some dramatic fun playing the character’s fish-out-of-water quality as he desperately tries to pass himself off as a cousin from England.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: ELIZA DUSHKU INTERVIEW

As Dark Horse gets ready to launch its second arc in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer “season eight” comic, which is written by Brian K. Vaughn and, coincidentally enough, focuses on Faith, it seems like the right time to reach into the archives and pull out Edward Gross’ interview with actress Eliza Dushku. Said interview was conducted in between the actress choosing not to reprise the Faith role in a proposed spin-off and, instead, taking the starring role in Tru Calling.
   

Kicking vampiric ass as Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, waving her pom-poms in Bring It On or travelling backwards in time to try and prevent certain murders from occurring on Tru Calling just seems like another day in the life of Eliza Dushku. And whether she’s tapping into her dark side or playing someone a little lighter, all of it is somehow related to who she is as a person at any given moment.
    “It depends on what comes up, where I am and what I’m giving off,” says Dushku. “Sometimes they seem to be different manifestations of my different personalities. I think we all do have interesting people in us. I try to mix it up, keep it fun, keep it real, keep it interesting. But it’s always a circumstance where the grass is greener. When you’re on a comedy, you’re like, ‘I need to do something serious.’ I was doing The New Guy and City by the Sea pretty much simultaneously. It was night and day. The characters were so different. It makes it fun and kind of interesting. For me, I think I have to see a street-wise element to the character. I like to see intelligent young women in roles and as characters. I gravitate towards that street-wise element.”

THE MAKING OF DARK COMMANDOS

Online Entertainment magazine offered up a behind the scenes look at the making of Dark Commandos, tracing the show's origins and interviewing key players. Clicking below will bring you to a pdf version of that article, which is available for downloading.

Download DarkComm.pdf

DARK COMMANDOS - Episode One

In Episode 1 of Dark Commandos, the kidnapping of the Vice-President's daughter entangles the kidnappers, the police, and the Undead Brigade in a high speed chase.     It's wall-to-wall action from the very first frame, as a careening van dodges police cars and helicopters, until -- years before Bruce Willis did it bigger and better (and for about a hundred million dollars more) -- an airborne car actually takes down a helicopter.

DARK COMMANDOS Trailer

With the David Greenwalt interview, below, we mark the official launch of the Dark Commandos blog: Vampires and Slayers.   If you're not familiar with DARK COMMANDOS, it is the vampire web series originally launched several years ago, at a time when hardly anyone was doing live dramas on the internet.    We produced eight episodes, before concluding that without a way to generate income from it, we could not afford to keep producing the series in its original form.   Since then, we have developed a comic book based on the property and are looking at a possible animated version. 

Here's the original trailer:

Executive Producer David Greenwalt on "Moonlight"

In the new CBS series Moonlight, debuting this fall, Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin) is a private investigator who has truly seen it all after being bitten by his vampire bride on their wedding night 60 years ago. He now lives between two realities, fighting his adversaries among the undead while being in love with a mortal woman. St. John must cautiously balance these two lives before they clash, proving that life's gravest dangers are found in the moonlight.

The series is created by Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson, with Angel co-creator David Greenwalt serving as executive producer.

In our audio interview, Greenwalt discusses the series itself and traces his own involvement with it.