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Disney has hired D.V. DeVincentis to script The Night Stalker as a vehicle for Johnny Depp. The film is based on the classic TV series that starred Darren McGavin as the tabloid reporter who finds his way to a series of supernatural killers. The move follows Disney’s hiring of Edgar Wright to direct the film. Depp and his Infinitum Nihil partner Christi Dembrowski are producing and David Kennedy is exec producer. The studio bought The Night Stalker for Depp, Dombrowski and Kennedy last summer.
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I hope they don’t botch this up like Dark Shadows. The original Night Stalker TV movie wasn’t a comedy. Kolchak was a seedy, Runyonesque reporter drawn into a frightening scenario. Janos Skorzny the vampire wasn’t suave or cool, either. The original movie had darkly amusing moments, but it built suspense by having idealistic newshound Kolchak getting closer and closer to a thing that would likely rip his lungs out.
Comedy wasn’t the problem in ‘Dark Shadows’: Smith doesn’t know how to structure a story. Why was August replaced?
I think Tim Burton had a hand in why Dark Shadows is doing badly. Its amazing how noone blames Burton when he has one successful movie for every 5 he makes.
Oh, don’t worry, they will . . . .
I will not see this if it is a comedy. Hopefully, Depp is capable of returning to drama. He used to do that, in the old days.
There’s an on newspaper joke: What’s the definition of a trend? Two facts, and a reporter on deadline.
Dark Shadows was a cult-fave TV show. They tried to revive it years after the fact as a weekly prime-time show, and it stiffed. Years later, Johnny Depp starred in a movie version. It hasn’t done so well.
The Night Stalker was a cult-fave TV show. They tried to revive it years after the fact as a weekly prime-time show, and it stiffed. Years later, Johnny Depp…
Dark Shadows of 1991 failed due to the gulf war and bad scheduling and a bit of poor scripting. DS failed as a movie in 2012 because Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have no clue as to what made the 1966 to 1971 original series so special…even though they claim to have been fans…I doubt that is true. The 1995 NIGHT STALKER failed because it was not given a chance and it was not the fab original with such a great actor/personality as Darren McGavin. The tv movieS were okay (there were two) but it was the tv show that gave KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER its charm, its scares, its great memories and some great horror action along with some memorable characters and lines…I mean what other show can put a werewolf on a luxury liner and make it original and scary all at once. Depp will surely not do it justice…no one can really. Depp used to be good but he’s no longer. ANd he’s certainly no Darren McGavin. I’m sure this will be a mess just like teh 2012 DS movie…which is awful because at its heart is …well, no soul.
Thank you.
You hit the nail on the head.
Still, as a fan of the original DS soap opera, I did appreciate the revival with Ben Cross and Joanna Going. I think it helped that creator Dan Curtis and Bob Cobert were directly involved with it.
Well I bet Depp does a really crappy accent and gets paid a lot of money to do the same character over and over again. Its too bad, he was good in Dillenger, so the talent is still there but he needs a good director to bring it out. Burton is not that director.
And of course, that SHOULD read: “There’s an OLD newspaper joke…”
they’re clearly going more for comedy based on the hire. too bad. loved this show because of the suspense, not the comedy.
Bad idea. I don’t see much audience for this movie. The original series was good enough, and the property should just be left alone.
Awesome news, Johnny is king, what a great actor he has become, my favs being Sleepy Hollow, Neverland, From Hell, Dark Shadows. i am watching the original D S on streaming Netflix, wonderful goofy romantic Sixties show not campy, very heartfelt and addicting thank you Jonathan frid!
“…you better stay away from him/
He’ll rip out your lungs, Jim/
I’d like to meet his tailor!”
-Warren Zevon
Here we go with another remake. As if the TV failure with Stuart Townsend wasn’t enough. And with the overrated Depp in the lead. What could possibly go wrong?
NO MORE VAMPIRES!
Good for Devincentis, seems like he needed this.
This could be great but not with Depp. Edgar Wright is also wrong for it. So is the writer. Apart from all that, full speed ahead!
You know, Richard Matheson who wrote the original, the author of I Am Legend, father of the modern vampire novel is still alive.
If only they could remake The Night Stalker as a real homage to the series. But they won’t. They’ll make it a comedy. Maybe a funny one at that, but it won’t be for the fans.
Every time a remake of something I really like comes out, I’m all like “please oh please of please don’t fuck this up”, and most times they do fuck it up. But: not every time. So…please oh please oh please….
This should have been the film they made instead of Dark Shadows if they are going to do a comedic take on anything. Night Stalker was funny, mainly from McGavin’s take on it and some funny moments in with the creepy stuff. It was more in the vein of what they tried to do with Dark Shadows, which should have been left alone as a more serious take. Maybe they might get it right. Depp could fit in nicely with this one, although I have my doubts after Dark Shadows.
Wow Edgar Wright is going to be busy what with ant-man and The World’s End can’t see this coming of personally.
Darren McGavin was great in the TV show, the later version of Night Stalker was so different and lost what was so great about the original. I don’t see Johhny as the Darren McGavin character.
I hope I am wrong.
There are two reasons that the magic of the original Night Stalker can never be repeated: The first is that Darren McGavin is dead. The second is that Matheson was the first to lift the Vampire out of the Victorian era and set him loose in contemporary America. Part of the fun was seeing the vampire deal with the problems of feeding in a world with newspapers, Instamatic cameras with flash cubes, blood banks and used-car salesmen. The other half of the fun was seeing a guy as pragmatic and down-to-earth as Kolchak attempt to convince himself, his editor, and everyone else that this could really be happening.
You can only make that leap once. Since then, most vampire stories have been set in contemporary times.
That said, I don’t think Depp is a bad choice to play Kolchak, and there’s a chance it might even be pretty good.
Pardon me, it is actually Jeff Rice, who wrote the novel on which the original TV movie was based, who should be credited with the idea of setting a vampire story in modern times.
Anyone who watched and enjoyed Darrin McGavin in “Nightstalker” knows that he (excellently) played it for comedy. His Kolchak is not that unlike other just-barely-over-the-top characters that Depp has played in recent years.
I had forgotten the completely forgettable effort to re-boot the series as more of a drama. Maybe that’s why someone complained about making it a comedy – they’re too young to know its roots.
McGavin’s Kolchak was a lovable liar and inveterate reporter of the “Front Page” school, with all the fashion sense of Peter Falk’s “Colombo”.
I’m sad to see Hollywood tackle yet another old TV show instead of generating something creative and new, yet if anyone can dust it off and help it put a smile on viewer’s faces, certainly Johnny Depp can. I hope they keep “Kolchak’s” narration – it added to the charm.
The Original Night Stalker movie was fantastic. I remember as a young child (too young to see such a scary movie) watching it with my family and all of us were scared. This movie will be great, Johnny Depp did a great job in BLOW (telling the story) and he will do justice to Darren McGavin as Kolchak narrating it and telling the story. I read the book the Kolchak Papers and the TV movie left out a lot so as long as they do the Vampire in Vegas story, I have no doubt it will be great. Shame on all you Depp haters, he is a very talented and versatile actor; after all, who can play John Dillinger and the Mad Hatter and make them both believable? Dark Shadows was great and it beat the Avengers in Europe and as far as the revival with Ben Cross, that too was great and we fans don’t know why they cancelled it. The 2005 remake of The Night Stalker sucked, the pilot was terrible and it made no sense. Can’t wait for this movie!!!
Johnny Depp will do great as Kolchak, after all, Blow was narrated and he did a superb job. I just hope they stick to the vampire in Vegas story, that was so scary and the actual book has so much more than the movie. Can’t wait for this one.