Johnny Depp is in final talks with Paramount Pictures to star in Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, the film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday story. Horror writer Ti West (The Pearl, Max Thin) will direct from a script by Nathaniel Halpern (Tales from the Loop, Legion), and Andrea Riseborough (Oblivion, Two Leslies) will co-star. Emma Watts will serve as producer, with Steven Deuters and Jason Forman serving as executive producers.
If the deal goes through, the studio aims to release the project on November 13, 2026.
Depp plays the titular role of Ebenezer Scrooge, a misanthropic and miserly businessman in 19th century London. Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future in an attempt to save him from the sufferings of the afterlife. The character has been a mainstay in holiday movies for decades, including the 1951 classic film adaptation starring Alastair Simm, 1988’s Scrooged starring Bill Murray, 1992’s A Muppet Christmas Carol starring Michael Caine, and 2009’s A Christmas Carol starring Jim Carrey.
Nosferatu director Robert Eggers is also developing his own take on the story at Warner Bros., with Willem Dafoe playing Scrooge.
The film will be Depp’s first role with a major studio since 2018’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The actor was fired from the series in 2018 after British tabloid The Sun called the actor a “wife beater” after a disparaging cast member, following allegations of domestic abuse by ex-wife Amber Heard. (A separate trial in the US in 2022 found that both Depp and Heard had defamed each other.) Depp has since appeared in several independent films (Minamata, Jeanne du Barry) and recently filmed the thriller Day Drinker at Lionsgate opposite Penelope Cruz, also scheduled for release in 2026. This will be Depp’s first film as a director since 1997’s “The, The,”. “Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness,” a biological drama starring Riccardo Scamarcio, Stephen Graham and Al Pacino, is scheduled to be released in U.S. theaters on November 7th.
Nexus Point News first reported on the “A Christmas Carol” movie starring Depp and West.
