Johnny Depp has a few horror titles on his resume including Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sleepy Hollow. Known for his eccentric roles, Depp has adored the horror genre, specifically, the classic tales of vampires.
Depp’s love for vintage iteration of vampires led him to take a jibe at Robert Pattinson’s vampire in the Twilight franchise. The actor is more into the aesthetics of the classic representation of vampires than the glamorous modern vamps.
Johnny Depp’s Fascination With Classic Vampires
Johnny Depp has been fascinated with the classic blood-sucking devils in the dark as he grew up watching the classic vampires ever represented on screen. “I remember sprinting home from school to see it,” Depp once said (via. Contact Music). “I loved it, this soap opera with gothic vampires. Jonathan Frid, who originally played Barnabas, was such a striking presence – there’s a sliver of him in there,” he added. Depp is also critical of modern vampires and decided to reboot the 1960s television series Dark Shadows with Tim Burton.
“Over the years all these vampire movies have come out and nobody looks like a vampire anymore. I adored Dracula, from Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee, Max Shreck in Nosferatu – all these wonderful horror films. So this was an opportunity for me to sort of go into what doesn’t really exist so much anymore – that classic monster make-up,” he said.
Depp’s take on the 2012 movie Dark Shadows was rather a reaction to the new-age representation of vampires in the new horror movies. And he came to the battlefield to fight for the classic iterations of the bloodsuckers.
Johnny Depp Declared Himself As An Alpha Vampire
Depp was confident in portraying the classic vampire from the 1960s show. “There’s room for two vampires on this block — as long as he remembers I am the Alpha Vampire,” he told Us Weekly hinting at his rivalry with Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen in the Twilight franchise. The idea for the movie appeared in a casual conversation while Depp was filming Sweeney Todd, another collaboration with Burton. “But, just as a fan of the show, our initial conversation about the thing was during Sweeney Todd,” Depp told Collider. “Where I just blurted out, in mid-conversation, ‘God, we should do a vampire movie together, where you have a vampire that looks like a vampire,’” he added.
“Dark Shadows was looming on the periphery, and then Tim and I started talking about it. When we got together, Tim and I started figuring out how it should be shaped. And then, [screenwriter] Seth [Grahame-Smith] came on board and the three of us just riffed. One thing led to another, and it basically dictated to us what it wanted to be, in a sense, certainly with Tim at the forefront, leading the troops,” he added.
Depp’s dream to pay homage to the classic vampire series came true but the box office numbers have failed to declare the movie a hit. For both Depp and Burton, it was an ambitious project but collected only $245.5 million worldwide against the huge budget of $150 million.
Dark Shadows is available to stream on Hulu.
