Ebenezer Trailer Makes Johnny Depp's Christmas Carol Look Like A Horror Movie

• Trailers

The latest take on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" comes from filmmaker Ti West, who is best known for gruesome tales like "House of the Devil, "Pearl," and "The Sacrament." So, it's perhaps to be expected that the first trailer for "Ebenezer" feels very horror-tinged — from the spectral figure of the Ghost of Christmas Past (Andrea Riseborough) to the blood-red text reminding us of star Johnny Depp's previous "misfit" characters.

Ebenezer Scrooge is Depp's first major mainstream role in quite a few years. The actor's career was already starting to fizzle in the mid-2010s with a string of box office bombs, from "Dark Shadows" to "Alice Through the Looking Glass." Then, a highly publicized series of ugly legal battles between Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard made him largely untouchable for years as far as Hollywood was concerned.

But late last year, Paramount Pictures announced that "Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol" was in development for a Thanksgiving 2026 release, with Depp taking center stage. The movie has had a pretty speedy turnaround, with principal photography only kicking off in January of this year. Now, Paramount has unveiled the first trailer as part of a promotional push at San Diego Comic-Con 2026. Check it out above.

The Ebenezer trailer features a classic horror homage

Among the broader horror motifs in the "Ebenezer" trailer is a direct homage to Johnny Depp's very first movie role, in Wes Craven's 1984 classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street." In one of the movie's most memorable scenes, Depp's character gets pulled inside his bed by Freddy Krueger's razor claws, and a great torrent of blood spews from the hole that he was pulled into. "Ebenezer" has a considerably milder version of this in a clip where Scrooge sinks into his bed — presumably as part of his adventure into the Christmases of the past, present, and future.

Though the tagline promises "The name you know ... the story you don't," the moments clipped in the "Ebenezer" trailer are all pretty familiar beats from Charles Dickens' original novel, which has been adapted many times over the years. (The definitive adaptation for many is still 1992's "The Muppet Christmas Carol.") It's possible, though, that screenwriter Nathaniel Halpern added a few surprises to this latest version of the story.

The cast of "Ebenezer" also includes Ian McKellen as Scrooge's late partner, Jacob Marley, Rupert Grint as Scrooge's put-upon employee, Bob Cratchit, and "Severance" breakout Tramell Tillman as the Ghost of Christmas Present. 

"Ebenezer" arrives in theaters on November 13, 2026.