'Dark Shadows' starts filming in England

LONDON, May 24 (UPI) -- Filming has begun in England on the big-screen adaptation of the iconic TV series "Dark Shadows," said Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures.

Tim Burton is directing the film. Its cast includes Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Bella Heathcote, Chloe Moretz and newcomer Gulliver McGrath.

"In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America," a synopsis said. "But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas has the world at his feet -- or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy ... until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard. A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972."

"Dark Shadows" is being filmed entirely in England, both at Pinewood Studios and on location, the movie's producers said.