Vampire pop culture is about to get even cooler: Next year, Johnny Depp and his longtime collaborator, master director Tim Burton, will start shooting a film adaptation of “Dark Shadows”, the cult TV series from the 60s, a soap opera with vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural characters (as opposed to the usual doctors and nurses in love.) With dark, Gothic movies like Sweeney Todd and Edward Scissorhands, Depp and Burton seem like a perfect match for the material, and are likely to make the definitive modern vampire movie. Their take on “Dark Shadows” probably won’t hit theaters until 2011, however, so Edward Cullen can rest easy until then.

Image credit: Movie poster of Sweeney Todd, from Warner Brothers/Dreamworks.