Johnny Depp Plays Scrooge in 'Ebenezer,' a Dark Christmas Carol Out November 13

Paramount Pictures has released a new promotional clip for Ebenezer, its Christmas-season reimagining of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, putting Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer Scrooge at the centre of the campaign. The studio shared the clip through the film’s official account on X on October 14, captioned “It’s what he does best,” and pointed audiences to see Depp “bring Ebenezer Scrooge to life” in theatres on November 13.

The film, also billed as Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, is directed by Ti West, the filmmaker behind the horror trilogy X, Pearl and MaXXXine. Its screenplay is by Nathaniel Halpern, adapted from Dickens’s 1843 novella. Emma Watts produces through Wattsco and IN.2 Film, and Paramount Pictures is distributing. The project was first reported in 2025 and has been developed as a gothic, horror-inflected reimagining of the familiar story rather than a traditional period adaptation.

Depp plays Scrooge, the miser at the centre of the tale. He is joined by an ensemble that includes Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Charlie Murphy, Tramell Tillman and Ian McKellen. The studio has not yet detailed which roles most of those actors play.

A darker Christmas Carol

West’s film arrives as another attempt to retell a story audiences have seen many times. Dickens’s novella has been adapted for film and television more than almost any other work of fiction, from the 1951 British film Scrooge to The Muppet Christmas Carol in 1992 and a long line of animated and musical versions. Adaptations date back to the silent era and have continued without interruption since.

West’s background in horror gives this one a different register: the source material already includes ghosts, a grave and a man forced to confront his own death, and the filmmakers appear to be leaning into those elements rather than softening them. The title role also places Depp in the company of the actors who have played Scrooge before him, among them Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, George C. Scott, Michael Caine and Jim Carrey.

The production is modest by the standards of a studio Christmas release, with a reported budget of roughly $38 million. Paramount is nonetheless positioning the film as a wide seasonal tentpole, aimed at the stretch of the calendar that reliably rewards holiday releases.

A first look at the poster

On the same day the clip appeared, IGN published an exclusive first look at the film’s new poster, sharing it through the outlet’s account on X as part of its IGN FanFest coverage. The artwork sets Depp’s Scrooge in close-up and places the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future around him — the three spirits whose visits drive the novella’s overnight reckoning. IGN called it a “brand-new poster” for the film and repeated the November 13 release date.

The composition reads as a statement of intent. Where a studio poster for a starry adaptation might gather the whole ensemble, this one keeps its focus on Scrooge’s face and the three apparitions that surround him, leaning into the ghost story at the heart of Dickens’s tale. That emphasis fits the darker, horror-inflected reading of A Christmas Carol that director Ti West and the studio have been building toward, and it offers the campaign’s clearest image yet of how the film intends to look. For a holiday release built around a story audiences know well, the poster’s job is to signal that this version will feel different — and it does so by making the ghosts, rather than the seasonal cheer, the centrepiece.

Depp’s return to studio filmmaking

It is Johnny Depp’s first Hollywood studio film in eight years.

The release also marks Depp’s return to a major Hollywood studio film after several years away from them. Ebenezer is his first studio title of that scale since Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018.

His next studio project is Day Drimmer, a Lionsgate film set for March 2027, in which he appears alongside Madelyn Cline and Penelope Cruz. Together, the two releases will give an early signal of how a wide audience responds to his return to bigger productions.

From teaser to trailer

The film was first shown to the public with a teaser on July 23, 2026, and a full official trailer followed on October 1. The October 14 clip is a shorter promotional piece built from the same material rather than a new trailer, and it repeats the November 13 date.

Ebenezer opens in UK and US theatres on November 13, 2026.

Sources

Deadline (Justin Kroll, October 23, 2025); People; Variety; AOL (October 1, 2026); Paramount Pictures; the film’s official account on X; Wikipedia, “Ebenezer (film)”; IGN (X post, October 14, 2026).