Warner Brothers is teaming with Depp's Infinitum-Nihil and Graham King's GK Films to develop the movie. Depp has said in interviews that he has always been obsessed with Dark Shadows and had, as a child, wanted to be Barnabas Collins, the vampire patriarch of the series. The role was originated by Jonathan Frid.

A rights deal just closed with the estate of Dan Curtis, the producer/director who created the soap, which aired weekdays on ABC from 1966 to 1971. Depp and King will produce with David Kennedy, who ran Dan Curtis Productions until Curtis died last year of a brain tumor. Infinitum-Nihil's Christi Dembrowski served as the point person on the deal.