Our new favorite show, Widow’s Bay, was chock full of references and homages, and more than once we thought we spotted some Dark Shadows hat tips throughout the first season. We don’t know if the cursed island helped make it happen, but cult-beloved Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows will soon launch another comeback—this time, in animated form.
We say “another” because the show, created by horror legend Dan Curtis (The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror, Burnt Offerings), has been revived a few times since its original run, which spanned 1966 to 1971 on ABC and also included two feature films. There was a short-lived TV remake in 1991 and Tim Burton’s unfortunate 2012 big-screen adaptation.
But this new take is something entirely new: an adult animated series, coming from Warner Bros. Animation and just announced at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. A press release from Warner Bros. notes the show is “currently in development” and specifically mentions the importance of the show’s main character, Barnabas Collins—played so memorably on the original show by the late Jonathan Frid—as “TV’s original anti-hero and the father of the modern-day vampire.”
While there’s not yet a network or streaming home for this new Dark Shadows, the release does note that part of the inspiration here is that the original series is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Lisa Holdsworth is aboard as showrunner and executive producer, and the show is described as an “adult animated series continuing the saga of the Collins family. Blending gothic, horror, and supernatural genres, this coming adaptation promises all the dark twists and romantic intrigue that defined the transformational series across its 1,200-plus episode run.”
Are you ready to return to Collinsport for more vampires, witches, werewolves, spooky music boxes, curses, possessions, body swaps, and maybe even some time travel? And who would you cast as the voice of Barnabas Collins?
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