New Ebenezer trailer sends Johnny Depp's Scrooge to the spirits

From there it's classic Scrooge, played mostly for laughs. Two gentlemen turn up at his cold, grey counting house, all frosted windows and stacked ledgers, collecting for charity. "Mr. Scrooge... we raise funds for the poor," one says in the trailer. "What shall I put you down for?" Scrooge's answer is one word: "Nothing." When they offer to list him as an anonymous donor, he sets them straight: "I wish to be left alone." Then comes a forced laugh and a brush-off: "Ha, ha, ha good day. Good day."

The mood turns when a voice whispers "Ebenezer..." on a foggy street. There's a heavy door knocker, a dark staircase and a bedroom lit by a single candle. A pale, grey-faced ghost delivers the line every version of the story needs: "You will be haunted by three spirits."

Depp's Scrooge tries to bargain his way out. "Perhaps I could just meet with them all at once and have it over and done with," he suggests. No luck. A veiled figure rises behind the bed curtains and says, "Walk with me into your past," and Scrooge clings to his mattress. "I shall not leave this bed," he says, and a moment later, "No no no. Let go of me, bed!"

Darker than the first look

The back half leans harder into horror, which is what you'd expect from West. Red title cards ask "Think you know his story?" and answer "Think again." There's a crowded, golden-lit dance hall, a young woman in a red dress and a quiet exchange about her. "What was she to you?" someone asks. "Everything," comes the reply.

Then it heads somewhere much colder. On a blue-grey, fog-filled street, a spirit tells Scrooge, "You're welcome to take your chances out there." Ghostly figures loom out of the mist ahead. "I'd rather not," he says. The Hollywood Reporter described them as "zombie-like creatures" and called the film a "supernatural revenge thriller."

The lines get sharper as it builds. "You can't see who you've become, Ebenezer," one voice says. Another pleads: "You go after her! You will regret this moment for the rest of your miserable life!" Later, in the dark, comes a confession: "I'm not the man I was." A pale figure in white tells him, "Your nightmare has just begun," and ghostly faces flash up in the gloom.

It doesn't stay grim, though. Near the end the sun's out, the street below is bright with snow and a window flies open. "I'm alive!" comes the shout. "I'm alive! I don't know what to do." The last shot is back on a snowy street, with "Merry Christmas" in the subtitles, before the title card and the 13 November date.

That's a different pitch from the first trailer, which Paramount showed at San Diego Comic-Con on 23 July, where Depp turned up in costume as Scrooge. Deadline reported that in the teaser Depp turned to camera and said, "It's good to be back," and that its opening credits nodded to his best-known roles, including Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands. The new trailer drops the wink and lets the ghosts do the work.

Who's in it and who made it

Depp leads a big, mostly British cast. Paramount's official synopsis names Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Charlie Murphy, "with Tramell Tillman and Ian McKellen." According to The Hollywood Reporter, McKellen plays Scrooge's dead business partner, Jacob Marley. Riseborough is the Ghost of Christmas Past, Tillman is the Ghost of Christmas Present and Grint is Bob Cratchit. Dark Horizons reported that Ridley plays the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Claflin is Scrooge's nephew Fred and Conti plays the young Ebenezer.

Nathaniel Halpern wrote the screenplay, and Emma Watts produced it. Halpern's earlier work includes the TV series Legion and Tales from the Loop. Paramount presents the film in association with Domain Entertainment, with Wattsco and IN.2 Films as the production companies. Dark Horizons said filming took place in Dublin and London earlier this year.

The marketing line is short: "The name you know, the story you don't." Dark Horizons reported that Paramount bills it as a thrilling ghost story set in Dickens' London, following "one man's supernatural journey to face his past, present and future and fight for a second chance."

West suits that brief. He's best known for the horror trilogy X, Pearl and MaXXXine, and before that he made The House of the Devil and the hotel ghost story The Innkeepers. The Hollywood Reporter calls Ebenezer a Paramount "tentpole," which puts it in a different league from his earlier films.

For Depp, it's a return to big Hollywood studio work. Variety noted that his last Hollywood studio film was 2018's Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Since then he's mostly made international films, The Hollywood Reporter said, including the French period drama Jeanne du Barry. Variety also reported he's due next in Lionsgate's thriller Day Drinker, with Madelyn Cline and Penélope Cruz, in March 2027.

When you can see it

Ebenezer is a cinema-only release. Paramount's end card in the trailer gives a single date, 13 November, and the YouTube description says "only in theatres November 13." Here, Paramount Pictures Australia lists Thursday 12 November, which fits the usual Thursday opening. TV Central noted that the film hadn't yet been given an Australian classification, so check the rating before you take younger kids.

The timing matters. Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843, and it's been filmed many times since, from the Muppets to Bill Murray's Scrooged. A mid-November opening gives West's version a few weeks in cinemas before the summer holidays here. It also lands well ahead of Dune: Part Three, which, as we reported in August, has already claimed 18 December and its IMAX screens.

If you'd rather judge for yourself, the full trailer is on Paramount's channel now.