‘Ebenezer’ trailer: Depp’s Scrooge faces 3 horrifying ghosts
Paramount Pictures released the full “Ebenezer” trailer on Thursday, Oct. 1, giving fans their longest look yet at Johnny Depp as Ebenezer Scrooge in director Ti West’s gothic take on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” The film opens in theaters Nov. 13.
The new “Ebenezer” trailer centers on a warning. According to UPI, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley, who tells him three spirits will call on him on Christmas Eve.
Who haunts Scrooge in the “Ebenezer” trailer
Ian McKellen plays Marley. Dark Horizons reports that Andrea Riseborough is the Ghost of Christmas Past, “Severance” star Tramell Tillman is the Ghost of Christmas Present and Daisy Ridley is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
Rupert Grint plays Bob Cratchit and Sam Claflin plays Scrooge’s nephew, Fred. Charlie Murphy and Ellie Bamber play the Fezziwigs, and Arthur Conti appears as a young Ebenezer. Henry Lloyd-Hughes is also in the cast.
Paramount bills the film as a ghost story set in Dickens’ London that follows “one man’s supernatural journey to face his past, present and future and fight for a second chance.” Nathaniel Halpern wrote the screenplay, and Emma Watts produced. Filming took place in Dublin and London.
A Comic-Con tease came first
The full “Ebenezer” trailer follows a shorter first look that Depp unveiled in July at San Diego Comic-Con. He arrived in full Scrooge costume and crashed Collider’s Directors on Directing panel in Hall H on July 23, Deadline reported. Earlier that day, he had greeted fans in character in the Gaslamp Quarter.
Depp stayed in character on stage. He hobbled out holding a candle, handed it to director John Francis Daley at the end of the dais and asked the Hall H crowd, “Have you no lives? No responsibilities?” according to Deadline. The outlet compared the period look to Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd” and noted that the opening credits nod to Depp’s past roles, including Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands.
That first “Ebenezer” trailer leaned into the dark tone. Variety described a cranky Scrooge pelting passersby with snowballs between ghostly visits, and it ended with Depp’s line, “It’s good to be back.” West, known for the horror films “Pearl” and “MaXXXine,” has said some early “A Christmas Carol” adaptations were among his first brushes with horror, Variety reported.
Total Apex Entertainment first covered the project when Depp signed on to lead Ti West’s reimagining, then again when McKellen and Tillman joined the cast.
Depp’s studio comeback and the Pirates question
“Ebenezer” is Depp’s first major studio lead since 2018, per Dark Horizons, and his first big Hollywood film since his 2022 defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, according to Variety.
A Virginia jury found that each had defamed the other, awarding Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (the judge later cut the punitive award to $350,000, the state cap) and awarding Heard $2 million. Depp had already lost his role as Grindelwald in the “Fantastic Beasts” films, where Mads Mikkelsen replaced him.
In the years since, the three-time Oscar nominee worked on smaller and international projects such as “Jeanne du Barry” and directed “Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness.” He also stars in Lionsgate’s upcoming action thriller “Day Drinker.”
A strong showing could also feed talk of a return to “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Producer Jerry Bruckheimer told Deadline at Disney’s D23 event in August, “We’re talking to Johnny. We’re working on a screenplay,” Film Stories reported.
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