Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Production to begin in April

I've been saying all along that Depp should play a vampire.

Well, I think I've got my wish come true. And it sounds brilliant to me. Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are teaming up again, this time to do a film adaptation of the TV soap opera Dark Shadows, which aired from 1966-1971.

Depp says that playing Barnabas Collins is a life-long dream/obsession for the actor to portray. The original Collins in the moody, atmospheric soap opera was played by Jonathan Frid, and originally the part was intended to be short-lived. However Frid made quite a sensation in the daytime soap playing a 175-year-old vampire who stalks the town of Collinsport, Maine, pining for his lost love. As a result, this TV series went on for the next 4years, and has had a cult following ever since.

Depp explains that he was “...obsessed with Barnabas Collins. I have photographs of me holding his posters when I was five or six.” And now that Depp has finished up the Pirates of Caribbean playing Jack Sparrow—who he says the character can simply not go any further—he can begin the work on this film (I've not seen any up-dates on when, but it was said in April or May of 2011—I think!)

His thoughts on the recent up swing of interest in vampire movies and books is that it's like any folk or fairytale—it has a “power to it” . . . “There's something symbolic about it that touches people in different ways.”*

All the articles that I've been able to pull up have talked of a release in 2011, and if that holds true, it will be up against the final Twilight film “Breaking Dawn”. Unless, of course, they wait until the following year.

From another more current article I've just viewed, they have pushed back the production start until April.

Well, I can hardly wait. What about all of you???

*Quotes taken from original article from Yahoo Movies July of 2009