While he may have been set aside in favor of other vampires, Barnabas Collins isn’t dead yet. Warner Bros. Animation announced at this year’s Annecy Festival (per The Hollywood Reporter) that they’re bringing the cult 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows back to life, this time in the form of an adult animated series.
No details on how the new series will adapt the classic series have been released, but we can assume it’ll follow a similar premise: undead vampire Barnabas Collins and his “supernaturally dysfunctional family,” as THR puts it, getting into scrapes and scraps as the strangest family on the block. The series’ logline is as follows:
“Blending gothic, horror, and supernatural genres, this coming adaptation promises all the dark twists and romantic intrigue that defined the transformational series across its 1200-plus episode run.”
Lisa Holdsworth will serve as executive producer and showrunner on the series, with Cathy and Tracy Curtis, Eric Homan, Kevin Kolde, and Fred Seibert joining as producers. No casting announcements have been released as of yet, with the series still in development per THR.
The original Dark Shadows series originally premiered in 1966, running for six years and 1,245 episodes. (Talk about a marathon!) It starred Jonathan Frid as Barnabas, along with Joan Bennett, along with Louis Edmonds, Denise Nickerson, Kathryn Leigh Scott, David Selby, Nancy Barrett, Thayer David, and more.
The series quickly became a cult classic that spun off numerous novels and films, including two made contemporaneously as well as the 2012 remake starring Johnny Depp, directed by Tim Burton. The Collins family also briefly appeared in a series of audio dramas released by Big Finish Productions in the 2010s, a company perhaps best known for their Doctor Who stories.
No release date has been set for the Dark Shadows animated series. Stay tuned to FANGORIA for more updates.
