Ebenezer Scrooge Gets Ghosted Like Never Before

Before Christmas morning is a night you'll never forget.

Reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol as a child, director Ti West felt drawn towards the supernatural encounters at its center. With Paramount Pictures' Ebenezer, arriving in theaters November 13, he pairs his eye for horror with a story about the growing pains of transforming into a better person.

"It's such an emotional story that I wanted to hopefully have a new audience connect to it emotionally in a way that they hadn't before," West says.

Director Ti West and Johnny Depp on set of Ebenezer.

Written by Nathaniel Halpern and starring Johnny Depp as Ebenezer Scrooge, the film takes audiences through Victorian London where the streets are crowded, the inequalities are stark and the spirits have an unsettling presence. But the question driving that journey is deeply human: How did Scrooge become the man he is, and can he change?

Beneath the Bah Humbug

For Depp, who grew up watching Alastair Sim's Scrooge, taking on the character meant finding his own way into a familiar figure. He looked beyond the miser's cruelty to the formative experiences that might have made caring feel dangerous.

"It takes something to get there, you know?" Depp says. He approached Scrooge as someone who, at a certain point, "had to stop himself from caring because it hurt him too much, so he then just went inward."

That interpretation left room for mischief. As Depp settled into the character, his unexpected noises and gestures also helped shape Scrooge during filming, adding playfulness to the character. "You know, it's kind of like once you know the character, more things come out of it," he says. "They just started to arrive in the scene as the scene was happening."

While Depp's Scrooge is full of mischief, his nephew Fred, played by Sam Claflin, is motivated by something more heartfelt: a desire to connect with his uncle and, in doing so, feel closer to his late mother. Conversations with West helped Claflin see the depth in a character he barely remembered from earlier adaptations. "I think he's very optimistic and hopeful," Claflin says.

Across town, Rupert Grint's Bob Cratchit carries the strain of a punishing work life while trying to provide for his family. Grint wanted to acknowledge that frustration alongside the character's enduring warmth. "He's someone that family is such a kind of key part of his whole identity," Grint says. "And he's got so much at stake, and yet he still sees the good in everyone and has such kind of high spirits and still looks forward to Christmas, and it's an important time for him."

Rupert Grint in Ebenezer.

Ghosts with Histories

West gives the ghosts their own backstories, too. Ian McKellen's Jacob Marley appears before his death, a change McKellen relished. "I was given the chance to imagine what Marley would have been like when he was still reasonably hale and hearty," McKellen says.

Ian McKellen in Ebenezer.

For Andrea Riseborough, preparing for her role as the Ghost of Christmas Past began with listening. She studied British Library recordings of people who had lived and worked in Dickens' era, which gave her a firsthand sense of what life was like at the time. "It's really important to connect with it as purely as you possibly can," she says.

Johnny Depp and Andrea Riseborough in Ebenezer.

Tramell Tillman found a darker possibility in the Ghost of Christmas Present: What if guiding others toward humanity was itself a form of penance? That interpretation opened up an unexpected affinity between the spirit he plays and the character of Scrooge. "Working with Johnny and Ti opened up for collaboration and exploration that those relationships and those stories could exist simultaneously and not take away from Ebenezer's journey, but enhance it," Tillman says.

Tramell Tillman and Johnny Depp in Ebenezer.

Building Dickens' World

That exploration extended across the production. Production designer Eve Stewart's team built winding London streets at the Historic Dockyard Chatham, where Charles Dickens' father once worked, laying individually stamped concrete cobblestones and filling storefronts with detailed signage. A towering Christmas tree was assembled from nine trees tied together, while visual effects extended the city beyond the set.

Costumes and prosthetics made the supernatural tangible. Tillman's coat incorporated individually crafted silk leaves while Riseborough's spectral transformation took about five hours each day. For Depp, even the fit of Scrooge's midnight-blue dressing gown conveyed a man uncomfortable in the world. "Johnny saw Scrooge as a bit restrained and uncomfortable in the world and he wanted the costume to reflect that," assistant costume designer Jess Willcock-Stow says.

The sounds of Christmas were captured on set, too. West had the cast sing carols live on the London street set, surrounded by falling snow and rolling fog. "Live on our beautiful London street set, the actors were able to be much more authentic," production sound mixer Paul Paragon says.

Director Ti West and Johnny Depp on set of Ebenezer.

The shared sense of purpose was what Depp treasured about stepping onto the set. "Everybody that's there is working exactly for the very same thing," he says. "We're all striving forward for that particular scene to work."

That ethos gives Scrooge's journey its heart, inviting audiences to believe that even someone who has shut himself away can find his way back to others. For McKellen, that possibility of change is what keeps Dickens' story meaningful across generations. "I suppose that's the eternal message, which is always a welcome one."

Taking Scrooge's Change of Heart Beyond the Screen

Scrooge's transformation is also inspiring an invitation to give back. To mark the film's release, Paramount is partnering with No Kid Hungry, a national campaign to end childhood hunger in the United States, connecting the story's themes of generosity, compassion and community with opportunities for audiences to get involved.

Through a ticketing promotion that launched October 27, Paramount and Regal are donating $1 to No Kid Hungry for every Ebenezer ticket purchased from Regal through November 13, up to $50,000 total, with each company contributing $25,000. A Charitybuzz auction, which concluded October 28, raised additional support by offering tickets to the film's London premiere and after-party.

Ebenezer opens in theaters November 13. Get tickets now.