'Dark Shadows' will be Johnny Depp's next movie

It looks like Johnny Depp’s next movie will be Warner Bros. and Tim Burton’s big-screen incarnation of gothic vampire TV soap opera Dark Shadows.

The reteaming of Burton and Depp has been more than three years in the making -- Depp was obsessed with the series as a child -- but the studio has now set an April start.

Depp will portray Barnabas Collins, a vampire living in a Maine manor who is searching for his lost love.

Now that Depp has made his decision, the other projects he was flirting with will have to find new actors, unless of course they can be wrapped up by April. For example, Depp's name has been mentioned in connection with Kathryn Bigelow’s Triple Frontier as well as Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman.

Richard Zanuck, Graham King and Christi Dembrowski are producing.

Seth Grahame-Smith wrote the current draft; John August also penned the script.