Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer Scrooge would like everyone to go away. Paramount’s new Ebenezer trailer, released October 1, gives him very little chance of getting his wish. Charity collectors, Christmas visitors and a frightening guest in his bedroom interrupt the businessman’s routine before the spirits start taking him elsewhere.
The film reaches U.S. theaters on November 13, 2026. Ti West directs this new take on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with Ian McKellen, Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough and Tramell Tillman among the cast. The new preview makes room for Scrooge’s bad manners as well as the ghost story.
Scrooge cannot shut the door on Christmas
The trailer first shows him refusing an appeal for money and turning down company. His response is blunt:
“I wish to be left alone.”
That refusal is familiar to readers of Dickens’ novella. Scrooge is wealthy but keeps other people at a distance, including his clerk Bob Cratchit and his nephew Fred. Christmas offers him plenty of invitations to be kinder, none of which he wants to accept. The film’s cramped offices, snowy streets and candlelit rooms give those encounters very different settings from a cheerful Christmas party.
The preview then introduces McKellen’s Jacob Marley, whose pale face and heavy chains are a much harder presence to dismiss. He warns that three spirits will visit. Scrooge’s attempts to stay put—including clinging to his bed—do not stop the strange things happening around him.
Why Marley comes before the three spirits
Marley is not the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present or Yet to Come. In Dickens’ 1843 novella, he is Scrooge’s former business partner, returning after death to warn him. The three later visitors show Scrooge different parts of his life and the lives of people around him.
That distinction helps make sense of the trailer without explaining the ending. Marley brings the warning; the other ghosts make Scrooge face things he has refused to think about. Visits to his past are part of the original story, so a younger version of a character does not, by itself, turn the film into a separate prequel.
The new footage places a veiled, pale figure beside the bed and later behind Scrooge in a hallway. It also moves away from his rooms to a crowded celebration. The cuts show that his night will not stay confined to one ghost knocking at one door; they do not reveal how every encounter will play out.
Who’s who in Ebenezer
Ti West comes to Dickens from horror
West wrote and directed X, the 2022 film about a small adult-film crew whose rural Texas shoot becomes a fight for survival. He also directed Pearl, the same year’s origin story about a young woman stuck on her family’s farm while dreaming of a life in the movies. Mia Goth co-wrote Pearl with him and played its title character.
Those films are useful background for viewers wondering why this Christmas adaptation looks unsettling. West has worked with isolated rooms, dangerous hosts and characters who badly want a different life. Ebenezer gives him a well-known ghost story, but the trailer also lets Depp’s Scrooge be rude, stubborn and occasionally funny rather than keeping every moment solemn.
Nathaniel Halpern wrote the screenplay, and Emma Watts produced the film. The announced ensemble also includes Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Charlie Murphy. Paramount has not announced a streaming date. For now, November 13 is the theatrical date to keep in mind.
