The role Johnny Depp dreamed of playing since he was a child: “Just a wee tyke”
Hollywood history is full of important director-actor combos. Classic examples include Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart, John Ford and John Wayne, and Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro.
If you’re after more modern flavours, then Wes Anderson and Bill Murray, Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst, or even Scorsese trading in De Niro for Leonardo DiCaprio might float your boat. Then there’s the fascinating combination of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.
The American actor and British director first worked together on Edward Scissorhands. Depp beat out many big names to land the titular role, an abandoned science experiment who tries to integrate with a suburban town. This sparked the beginning of a long and prosperous relationship, resulting in a total of eight feature films shared between the two men. From the more grounded Ed Wood to the outright camp Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, both of these have done much for each other’s careers.
The most recent collaborative work from Depp and Burton was 2012’s Dark Shadows, released prior to 2025. To promote the film, Depp and Burton, long-time collaborators, collaborated with Collider, where they discussed that the project had long been on the table.
“We’ve talked about it for many years, but this was the first project that I ever remember Johnny saying that he’d wanted to play this ever since he was a little boy,” Burton said. “He knew Barnabas Collins before he knew his own father.” Depp verified this himself, announcing that he had had his eyes on the character since he was ‘just a wee tyke’.
Depp would’ve first come across Dark Shadows through the cult soap opera that aired between 1966 and 1971. The show follows the Collins family and their run-ins with all manner of supernatural beings. Barnabas, originally portrayed by Jonathan Frid, didn’t show up until over 200 episodes in, but he quickly became the breakout character. In the film adaptation, Depp takes on the role of Barnabas – a vampire cursed to be buried alive for over two centuries. When he finally digs his way back to the surface, he’s reunited with his descendants, who are forced to come to terms with the fact that one of their long-lost relatives is, quite literally, the undead.
Unfortunately, the public failed to match Burton and Depp’s enthusiasm. Dark Shadows was released shortly after The Avengers, which suffocated pretty much everything else around it. Even without this intense competition, according to reviews, it does not appear that the movie would have lit the world on fire. Reviews were far too disappointing, with complaints filed against everything from tone to looks to script. This was the fifth Burton-Depp team-up in a row, and audience members had clearly grown weary of being offered the same solution over and over. It’s no wonder they haven’t worked together since.
It remains to be seen if there will be another collaboration between these two star-crossed creatives. The impact on Depp’s public image following his legal issues with Amber Heard has left him something of a pariah. Burton maintains that they will work together again, but if that never happens, then at least they got the chance to fulfil a small dream as their last hurrah.
