Johnny Depp has signed on to star in a new movie, “Ebenezer”, based on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, in which he will play Ebenezer Scrooge. It is set to arrive in theaters on November 13, 2026.
And that’s the news. All the rest is trailer footage, a long list of actors, and a sidebar tabloid rumor that has nothing to do with the film.
The trailer that accompanied it hangs its whole pitch on one line: “The name you know, the story you don’t.” Read this twice. The first half promises: this is still Scrooge, still Dickens, still the ghosts and the guilt and the reformation by morning. The second half is the studio telling you not to assume you know how it goes.
NDTV interpreted that tagline as an indication the film wouldn’t be a straight retelling, calling it a “surprising new twist” and a “fresh version” of the story. Worth repeating: that’s the outlet’s take on a marketing tagline, not a confirmed plot detail. Nothing released so far actually states what is changed.
The footage itself isn’t very revealing either. The Ghosts of Christmas visit Scrooge and make him face his own past. During the present timeline, he loses his temper so badly he begins throwing snowballs in anger. That’s Scrooge being Scrooge”. Whatever twist the tagline is teasing, it’s not sitting in the opening beats of the trailer.
It ends with Scrooge’s last word: “It’s good to be back.”
Which is the character’s line, and which is the actor’s, is anyone’s guess.
This is the part of the rollout that no trailer cut can market around. “Ebenezer” marks Depp’s first major Hollywood studio film since his legal battle with ex-wife Amber Heard over defamation and domestic abuse. That alone changes how a lot of people are going to watch this trailer. Every comeback narrative is read against the role that delivers it, and this one provides critics with the fodder without any work on their part.
Compare those two pieces of information: a studio putting Depp in the role of a man who has to endure a night of facing his own past, in a movie that closes with Scrooge announcing his own return. It is a strange coincidence, pure and simple. Read as intentional, it’s one of the most audacious examples of casting-as-narrative a studio has attempted in years.
Whether marketing likes it or not, audiences will come away with one of those two readings.
Rupert Grint plays Bob Cratchit, and this isn’t the underpaid clerk generations of readers imagine when the name is heard. NDTV’s cast details, however, list him as Scrooge’s business partner.
That one word change is more than a job description. The moral engine of “A Christmas Carol” is the divide between Scrooge (who has money) and Cratchit (who doesn’t). Bring Cratchit in as a business partner, and that gap narrows or vanishes, which means whatever redemption arc this version is building toward has to run on different tracks than the one Dickens wrote. It’s the clearest proof, in anything we’ve seen so far, that “Ebenezer” is in the business of transforming relationships, not just redesigning costumes.
The confirmed cast includes Ian McKellen, Daisy Ridley, Sam Claflin, Andrea Riseborough, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Charlie Murphy and Tramell Tillman, joining Depp and Grint.
NDTV has not said what parts any of them will play.
That’s a lot of familiar names in a story whose ending the entire audience already knows. A cast list that deep usually means a studio is preparing for an event release, not a quiet afterthought in November.
Unsubstantiated tabloid report, not linked to anything actually confirmed about “Ebenezer”: Cara Delevingne claiming Depp went “crazy” over her romance with Amber Heard. This is not film reporting; this is not confirmed; this is mentioned here for one reason and one reason only: so that nobody mistakes it for news about the film.
On the same page, a real story and a rumor loaded. That doesn’t mean that they’re related.
What we have here is a familiar tale, a loaded comeback story, and a tagline promising a twist we haven’t seen before. How much the “business partner” version of Cratchit actually strays from Dickens, and how much of the marketing around Depp leans into the real-life parallel rather than away from it, remains to be seen.
We will answer the first question on Nov. 13. The second was already answered by the tagline. The last line Scrooge says until then is the only line confirmed for the whole marketing campaign.
