Johnny Depp slates ‘Dark Shadows’ for April, ducks Tom Hanks

[HMG Celebrity News] – If anyone could turn some kitschy 1960′s TV into a box office hit, it’s Johnny Depp. But Johnny’s plans to remake the classic ABC soap ‘Dark Shadows’ as a movie have gone wrong. Again.

In July we reported that Johnny had acquired the rights to the 1966-vintage Gothic-horror soap opera, and hired Seth Grahame-Smith to write the screenplay.

To give you an idea how weird that could get, Seth wrote ‘Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,’ which somehow reached #4 on the New York Times’ bestsellers list.

For those new to this branch of weirdness, Dark Shadows was a gloomy, melodramatic soap-opera about the Collins family from Maine. It involved everything from witches to werewolves, and even a distant cousin who turns out to be a vampire.

The series ran for five years, attracted thousands of obsessed fans, and finally closed in 1971.

Johnny loves the show and has been trying to get a movie version made since the mid-80′s. He was finally due to start shooting it in January — and now it’s been stalled again until April. At least.

The reasons for the latest delay are unclear but it puts a large dent in Depp’s schedule — He was booked to start work on a film about Latin American organized crime called ‘Triple Frontier’ in February, co-starring Tom Hanks. But that’s now unlikely unless the scheduling changes.

‘Frontier’s director, Kathryn Bigelow [Oscar winner for 'The Hurt Locker'] has been courting Johnny for months, but he always made it clear his involvement had to fit in with Dark Shadows. So unless ‘Shadows’ gets re-rescheduled, Kate’s out of luck.

And the fallout could be unpleasant; If Johnny can’t be in ‘Triple Frontier,’ Deadline says Katherine’s second choice was Mark Wahlberg. And that’s not nearly as attractive an option.

Even Johnny can’t be in two movies at once, so which one do you want him to make?…