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Feud Alert? Twilight vs. Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Find if there's a bloodsucker battle brewing on the big screen

By Marc Malkin Apr 17, 2012 2:04 PMTags
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer, Twilight, Robert Pattinson20th Century Fox/Summit Entertainment

Stephenie Meyer's got some competition coming up.

Not only is Dark Shadows with Johnny Depp playing Barnabas Collins hitting theaters next month, but Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is coming out in June.

Does this mean there's a bloody battle brewing between Meyer and the peeps behind the two new flicks?

Not at all, says writer Seth Grahame-Smith.

And he should know. Not only did he write Shadows for director Tim Burton, but he also scripted Lincoln from his bestselling novel of the same name.

"I always say jokingly, 'Well my vampires don't sparkle,' and that always gets a big laugh and applause if I'm talking in front of a big audience," Grahame-Smith told me yesterday while promoting his new novel, Unholy Night, a twisted retelling of the Bible's Three Wise Men.

"But I always couch it in something that I really do believe—I'm not out for Stephenie Meyer. Her books are not for me, they're not meant for me. The movies are not designed for me but…I know how hard it is to get kids to read books the way she has. The fact is she got tens of millions of kids to read books."

So true!

And Unholy Night is not offend churchgoers, even if Grahame-Smith's Wise Men are a bunch of thieves.

"I wanted somebody who is intensely faithful to be able to read this book and go, ‘Wow, this is a really thrilling story and made me think about my faith in a different way,'" Grahame-Smith said. "And then I wanted somebody who is a a total agnostic and atheist to be able to read this and go, ‘That was a really fun story.' " (And yes, he's already working on the movie adaptation.)

And guess who asked for a copy of Unholy Night—a certain God preaching NFL star!

"I ran into Tim Tebow at a party…and I talked to him about it and he was like, 'Oh, I want to read that,' " Grahame-Smith said. "So I sent it to him. Who knows if he actually read it, but I do know that he has it."

P.S.: Grahame-Smith is also writing the script for and producing the sequel to Burton's 1988 ghost comedy Beetlejuice. "We've met with Michael Keaton," he said. "In theory everybody thinks it's a fun idea as long as the script is good. So that's kind of on my shoulders. I'm going to write it later this year."

Cannot wait.