Jackie Earle Haley & Bella Heathcote Circling Tim Burton’s ‘Dark Shadows’

Best buds Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have been itching to work together on a new Gothic endeavor: a film treatment of the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows. Who better to join them in their latest bit of dark whimsy than Freddy Krueger himself and an actress rumored to play a pale-skinned, black-haired young woman in a movie not featuring the Edward Scissorhands duo?

Jackie Earle Haley is reportedly in talks to join Burton’s project – one where he won’t play either a child molester and/or homicidal maniac – and Bella Heathcote is also said to be the top choice for an important role in the fantastical melodrama.

Deadline says that the light-haired Heathcote was in contention for the female lead role in Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman before Kristen Stewart emerged as the front runner. Dark Shadows would feature the little-known actress as Victoria Winters, the governess of the estate wherein lies the coffin of the late Barnabas Collins – a fellow who, it turns out, technically has been not of the living for a while now, seeing that he’s a sunken-eyed, blood-sucking creature of the night. Naturally, that’s the role Depp would play in the film.

Haley, of Nightmare on Elm Street and Watchmen fame is in line to play the con man Willie Loomis, a fellow who attempts to grave rob the deceased Mr. Collins of his impressive jewelry (no, that’s not a metaphor – get your mind out of the gutter). Things don’t work out well for Willie as the vampiric Barnabas makes the would-be thief his whipping boy and servant instead. That’s still a better deal than Haley got when he chatted up Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island.

Haley opposite DiCaprio in 'Shutter Island'.

Creepy creatures of all types paraded about in ABC’s original Dark Shadows TV show, which was a cult hit in the 1960s and bears a strong resemblance to Burton’s breed of filmmaking (stylized sets, off-kilter musical accompaniments, Gothic production design, etc., etc.). It seems all the more appropriate that Burton should helm the movie adaptation, which will hopefully be a return to form after the box office behemoth but critical letdown that was his (gloomy) candy-colored 3D take on Alice in Wonderland.

Equally intriguing is the fact that Dark Shadows will be scripted by Seth Grahame-Smith, the man who authored the surprisingly not campy titles Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, among others. Burton’s films tend to be more intentionally hammy and tongue-in-cheek than Smith’s genre mashups, but it shouldn’t be that much of a stretch for the writer to try his hand at delivering something more comedic in tone than his history and literary “re-envisionings.”

Dark Shadows will mark the eighth (and probably not the final) joint effort from Burton and Depp, who each have numerous other upcoming projects on their plat to handle as well. Rest assured, they’ll find time to work together again, with Depp once more bearing an abnormally pallid complexion onscreen.

Production on Dark Shadows was previously rumored to be getting underway this spring, with a 2012 release date in mind. Expect to hear a more official statement about the matter in the near future.

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Source: Deadline

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‘The Maze Runner’ Snags ‘Jackie’ Screenwriter

Fantastical teenage adventure/drama book-turned movie series are all the rage nowadays and everyone wants to be more the next Twilight, less the next Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. Fox is certainly hoping to appeal to the under-20 demographic with its new cinematic adaptation of James Dashner’s bestseller, The Maze Runner.

Original Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke will helm The Maze Runner, which now has a screenwriter in the form of Noah Oppenheim – an Emmy-winning producer who’s recently been trying his hand at the art of movie scripting.

Oppenheim was recently signed on to pen the English-language adaptation of Swedish thriller Snabba Cash as a starring vehicle for (former) High School Musical heartthrob Zac Efron. His screenwriting career really took off with his Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis biopic, aka. Jackie. That script was heavily praised by Steven Spielberg and was seemingly set to be directed by Darren Aronofsky and star his fiancee, Rachel Weisz, before the two split and the former signed on for Wolverine 2 – two entirely unrelated events, as far as we know. Moving on…

24 Frames was responsible for this scoop about The Maze Runner, the sequel to which is titled The Scorch Trials and has been on the New York Times’ hardcover bestseller list since it was released in fall of 2010. Dashner plans to round out his series as a trilogy and Fox should be quite willing to bring all three of his novels to the big screen – assuming the first film adaptation is a hit, of course.

Here’s a description of the setup for The Maze Runner:

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every 30 days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.

Besides the obvious Adam/Eve allusion in this premise, The Maze Runner has drawn numerous comparisons to The Hunger Games trilogy with the “young people in peril” setup and its dystopian setting. Hardwicke may be best (or, rather, infamously) known nowadays for tackling the first entry in Stephenie Meyer’s supernatural creature romance series-turned cash cow, but she has a long track record of handling stories about the difficulties of pre-adulthood in lesser known works like Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown, and a cinematic version of The Nativity Story.

Hardwicke’s “edgy” fairy tale pic Red Riding Hood will arrive in theaters this spring and the subject matter of The Maze Runner is of a similar vein – like all her directorial work, really. Regardless of how one feels about Twilight, there’s no denying that Hardwicke is an auteur in her own right; has a unique visual style; and is even responsible for crafting some quality coming-of-age stories that are both gritty and yet not entirely rooted in the everyday world.

Keep an eye out for more information about The Maze Runner in the near future.

Source: LA Times

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