The spirit of Hollywood's Christmas past reanimates as Johnny Depp returns to the big screen in his most ambitious project since his ostracization during the acrimonious and controversial defamation lawsuit with ex-wife Amber Heard. Paramount Pictures, under the new leadership of David Ellison, is in the final stages of negotiations to revive the timeless Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol with a fresh twist.
Ti West, the mastermind behind horror films X, Pearl, and MaXXXine, is at the helm of this new take titled Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol. Paramount is poised to release it on November 13, 2026. Andrea Riseborough will star alongside Depp, with a script penned by Nathaniel Halpern and Emma Watts, who briefly ran Paramount's film division, producing the project.
The studio describes this new movie as "a pulse-pounding ghost story set in Dickens' London, following one man's supernatural journey to confront his past, present, and future, and fight for a second chance." With Depp taking on the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, it seems like an apt metaphor for Depp's own career trajectory – once one of the biggest and most bankable stars in 21st-century Hollywood thanks to films like The Pirates of the Caribbean series, Alice in Wonderland, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
However, multiple years of defamation suits on both sides of the Atlantic from his split with Amber Heard resulted in a series of headlines that Hollywood found unpalatable, and Depp found himself on the outskirts of the industry. He was fired from Warner Bros.' Fantastic Beasts franchise in 2020. Depp shifted his focus to non-US movies and appeared in the period piece Jeanne du Barry. At the movie's premiere at Cannes in 2023, when asked about Hollywood's view of him, he replied, "I don't feel boycotted because I don't think about Hollywood. I don't feel much further need for Hollywood – I don't know about you."
His next move was a Hollywood half-step, starring in Day Drinker, a thriller produced by Lionsgate, which launched the project as an international sales title this week at the American Film Market. The movie was shot earlier this year and is expected to be released in 2026.
The Depp-West package hit the Hollywood market in the summer, ahead of Skydance's acquisition of Paramount. Even then, Paramount was considering it. But dealmaking was put on hold when Skydance took over and began evaluating the vast array of film projects that were coming in or close to being greenlit. In the end, the Depp-West pairing was too hot to pass up.
