It’s going to be a “vampires vs. the superheroes” kind of a weekend. Tim Burton’s take on TV soap opera Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp as the vampire Barnabas, opens in the U.S. and 42 foreign markets today (Friday, May 11), but it faces stiff competition from Disney/Marvel’s The Avengers, which shattered box office record with a $207.4 million opening last week. The Joss Whedon-helmed movie is expected to bring in about $90 million this weekend and hit the watershed $1 billion box office mark worldwide.
Dark Shadows, the eighth movie collaboration between Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton, is based on the ABC soap opera that aired during the 60s and 70s. The film has earned mixed reviews (a 41% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but Warner Bros. hopes fans of the original show and young male audiences will turn out to see Burton’s version, which also stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green and Johnny Lee Miller. The pic’s visual effects were handled by BUF, Method Studios, Moving Picture Company and Senate Visual Effects. The Thursday midnight showing of Dark Shadows brought in $550,000, while The Avengers brought in $18.7 million during its Thursday midnight showing last weekend.
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