Johnny Depp is in final talks to star in “Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol,” an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday story, for Paramount Pictures. Horror auteur Ti West (“Pearl,” “Maxxxine”) is directing from a script by Nathaniel Halpern (“Tales From the Loop,” “Legion”), and Andrea Riseborough (“Oblivion,” “To Leslie”) is set to co-star. Emma Watts is producing, and Stephen Deuters and Jason Forman are executive producers.
Should the deal close, the studio is looking to release the project on Nov. 13, 2026.
Depp will play the titular role of Ebenezer Scrooge, a misanthropic and miserly businessman in 19th century London who is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in an effort to save himself from an afterlife of torment. The character has been a mainstay of holiday cinema for decades, including in the classic 1951 adaptation starring Alastair Sim, 1988’s “Scrooged” with Bill Murray, 1992’s “A Muppet Christmas Carol” with Michael Caine, and 2009’s “A Christmas Carol” with Jim Carrey.
“Nosferatu” director Robert Eggers is also developing his own take on the story at Warner Bros., with Willem Dafoe circling the role of Scrooge.
The film would mark Depp’s first role from a major studio since 2018’s “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.” He was fired from that franchise after he lost a libel cast against the British tabloid The Sun, which had called the actor a “wife beater” in 2018 following allegations of domestic abuse by his ex-wife Amber Heard. (In a separate U.S. trial in 2022, both Depp and Heard were found to have defamed each other.) Depp’s since starred in a handful of independent films (“Minamata,” “Jeanne du Barry”), and he recently shot the thriller “Day Drinker” for Lionsgate opposite Penélope Cruz, which is also expected to premiere in 2026. Depp’s first film as a director since 1997’s “The Brave” — the biological drama “Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness,” starring Riccardo Scamarcio, Stephen Graham and Al Pacino — is due to open in U.S. theaters on Nov. 7.
Nexus Point News first reported on the “Christmas Carol” film with Depp and West.
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