Johnny Depp's First Studio Movie Since 2018 Opens Next Friday. Here Is What to Expect From Ti West's Ebenezer.

On Sunday, November 1, Johnny Depp walked the red carpet at the Whitby Hotel in New York for a special screening of Ebenezer, with director Ti West and co-stars Andrea Riseborough and Tramell Tillman beside him. Everyone else gets to see it next Friday.

Paramount opens West's version of A Christmas Carol in US and UK theaters on November 13. It is Depp's first major studio movie since Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018, and the studio's tagline makes a promise: "The name you know, the story you don't." Here is what to expect, what the tracking says, and five older Scrooges to stream while you wait.

A horror director takes on Dickens

West made his name in horror, from The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers to A24's X trilogy: X, Pearl and MaXXXine. Ebenezer is a different kind of job. It is a Paramount holiday release with a reported $38 million budget, shot in London and at the Historic Dockyard Chatham in Kent starting in January.

He brought one regular along. Tyler Bates, who scored all three X films, wrote the music. The screenplay is by Nathaniel Halpern, who created Amazon's Tales from the Loop and wrote for FX's Legion.

Do not expect a horror movie, exactly. Ebenezer is rated PG-13 and runs just under two hours, and the trailer leans as hard on comedy as on gothic gloom. The reaction to it split. A Yahoo Entertainment writer said they were shocked by how much they laughed at Depp, while Nerdist called it the year's worst trailer.

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A Scrooge who is not entirely wrong

West's big idea is moral gray area. In an August preview with Entertainment Weekly, he complained that other adaptations surround a nasty Scrooge with "benevolent, perfect people," and said he and Halpern wanted to complicate that.

We want to give Scrooge logic and a good argument, so when he is making an argument about something, he's not wrong.Ti West, to Entertainment Weekly

He also called Scrooge "an unlikable guy, but there's a certain sense of humor and charm to it as well," which sounds like a part built for Depp.

The cast list hints at the "story you don't" half of the tagline. TMDB credits two younger Ebenezers, Arthur Conti and Alfie Buck, plus a character billed as Scrooge's father. Dickens gives Scrooge's boyhood only a few pages, so that points to more time in the past than most versions spend. We will know for sure next week.

The cast: Gandalf, Ron Weasley and Rey walk into a Dickens novel

• Johnny Depp as Ebenezer Scrooge
• Ian McKellen as Jacob Marley, a part he has said took six days to shoot
• Andrea Riseborough as the Ghost of Christmas Past
• Tramell Tillman, who won an Emmy for Severance in 2025, as the Ghost of Christmas Present
• Robert Strange as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
• Rupert Grint as Bob Cratchit and Daisy Ridley as Emily Cratchit
• Sam Claflin as Scrooge's nephew Fred, with Ellie Bamber and Charlie Murphy also in the cast

The comeback question, and the tracking

Depp played Grindelwald in The Crimes of Grindelwald, then Warner Bros. recast the role with Mads Mikkelsen for 2022's The Secrets of Dumbledore. Since then his work has been smaller: the French period drama Jeanne du Barry, and Modì, which he directed. Paramount is selling Ebenezer as his return. He showed the first footage at CinemaCon in April, and at San Diego Comic-Con in July he turned up in full Scrooge costume and interrupted a Hall H panel to introduce the trailer in character.

Box office tracking has cooled. In October, Box Office Pro's long-range forecast put the opening weekend at $25 million to $35 million. On November 4, SlashFilm cited a newer Box Office Theory range of $17 million to $24 million, against that $38 million budget. For scale, SlashFilm noted that MaXXXine, the high point of West's trilogy, made $22 million in total.

The calendar gives it one clean weekend. Godzilla Minus Zero and The Cat in the Hat open the week before, David Leitch's How to Rob a Bank opens the same day, and The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping arrives November 20. Reviews are not out yet. Showbiz411 reports the embargo lifts at noon on Thursday, November 12, as preview showings begin.

Five Scrooges to stream before November 13

Every generation gets its Scrooge, and most of the great ones are a click away. Availability is from JustWatch listings this week. Holiday catalogs shuffle constantly, so check before you press play.

1. Scrooge (1951): Alastair Sim's black-and-white classic, released in the US as A Christmas Carol. Free with ads on Tubi and Plex, and on Kanopy with a library card.
2. Scrooge (1970): Albert Finney sings his way through Ronald Neame's musical. On Paramount+ and MGM+, and free on Tubi.
3. A Christmas Carol (1984): George C. Scott's TV film, directed by Clive Donner. On MGM+, and free on Tubi and The Roku Channel.
4. Scrooged (1988): Bill Murray as a TV executive in Richard Donner's modern update. On Paramount+ and Prime Video.
5. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992): Michael Caine plays it completely straight opposite Kermit as Bob Cratchit and Miss Piggy as Emily Cratchit, the role Ridley takes now. On Disney+.

Want more? Robert Zemeckis's motion-capture version with Jim Carrey (2009) is on Disney+, and Spirited (2022), the musical with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, is on Apple TV.

Then rank your Scrooges

Once you have seen Ebenezer, the fun question is where Depp lands against Sim, Caine and Murray. Put them head to head on Shortlist and you get a real answer instead of a vibe. The cast's other famous roles are already waiting: Grint and Depp's Grindelwald in Harry Potter movies ranked, McKellen in Lord of the Rings movies ranked and X-Men movies ranked, and Ridley in Star Wars movies ranked. For everything else opening this month, see our November theaters guide.

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