Trivia
Ebenezer
Directed by Ti West · starring Johnny Depp, Ian McKellen and Sam Claflin
- 16 facts
- 2026
Ebenezer: trivia
All 16 facts
- 1
The bed that swallows Scrooge
In one scene of 'Ebenezer', the bed pulls Scrooge down into it, just as it did to Johnny Depp in 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' (1984), his first film. The thing is, Ti West and screenwriter Nathaniel Halpern wrote it before Depp was anywhere near the project, simply because they both liked Wes Craven's film. Once Depp said yes, West panicked, called him back and offered to cut it in case it felt like too much of a wink. The actor's answer: "No, man, that's my first movie. I think we gotta do it."
- 2
The Scrooge who made him an actor
It was Depp who went looking for West once he heard the film was being made. According to the director, he told him that Alastair Sim, Scrooge in the 1951 version, "is a huge reason why I am even an actor". At the London premiere Depp put it his own way: he still thinks nobody has played Scrooge better than Sim, so the challenge was "to find another angle".
- 3
From Bob Cratchit to ghost
Before 'Severance', Tramell Tillman played Bob Cratchit in a stage 'A Christmas Carol' while he was studying acting at the University of Tennessee. One of those performances fell on the day of the Sandy Hook school shooting, and he had to comfort Tiny Tim's family on stage. In 'Ebenezer' Cratchit goes to Rupert Grint, and Tillman plays the Ghost of Christmas Present.
- 4
Six days and a ghost
Ian McKellen shot his Jacob Marley in barely a week. "It was only six days, but it was well worth it. I play a ghost!" he told Variety, adding that Depp was "in spankingly good form". According to West, in seven decades of acting McKellen had never been in any version of 'A Christmas Carol', and he even joked about all the other British actors who had.
- 5
The Marley that scared Ti West
West read Dickens's book every Christmas and, as a boy, liked it more as a ghost story than a Christmas one, especially after seeing the 1984 TV version with George C. Scott: "Marley really freaked me out." That's where the tone of 'Ebenezer' comes from. He pitched it to the studio as a "hard PG", like the films he grew up on, which children were allowed to watch but "occasionally pushed it just a little too far".
- 6
Marley, alive at the start
Dickens opens by insisting that Marley "was dead, to begin with". 'Ebenezer' doesn't: it starts with Scrooge's partner alive, played by McKellen, in a long scene of the two of them trading barbs. West's explanation: "It's very hard to photograph 'he was dead to begin with'." He wanted to put the audience in Scrooge's shoes more than earlier versions had.
- 7
Hammer candles
West wanted the look of Hammer's Victorian horror films, and that had consequences on set: "The amount of conversations I had about 'no, no the candle should be really red, or that candle should be really green or really blue.'" He admits that when you first see them on set you think "this is preposterous", but says those over the top choices have a beauty he can't resist.
- 8
Moles and a longer chin
Barrie Gower designed Scrooge's prosthetics, and Depp got so involved that he started making suggestions: "Johnny really embraces the makeup process. He's suggesting things like moles. He wanted his chin a little longer." It worked on the rest of the cast too: Tramell Tillman admits that the first time he saw him in full makeup, he didn't recognise him.
- 9
A Scrooge with a point
West and Halpern didn't want Scrooge to be the only flawed person in town. 'Ebenezer' adds con men faking disabilities on the streets of London and charity collectors spending the donations on their own coats. "We want to give Scrooge logic and a good argument, so when he is making an argument about something, he's not wrong," West told Entertainment Weekly. It doesn't make him right, he adds, but you see where he's coming from.
- 10
A ghost in a hurry
For West, Tillman's Ghost of Christmas Present is in a hurry: his time with Scrooge is limited and he wants to make the most of it. "His perspective is a little bit more like, 'I don't really care if you learn your lessons because I deal with people like you all the time.' He's almost in a 'Groundhog Day'." Each of the three ghosts, he says, was given a personality of its own.
- 11
Shooting at a historic dockyard
Filming began in London in January 2026, and one of the locations was the Historic Dockyard Chatham in Kent, an 80 acre former Royal Navy dockyard that has also hosted 'Mission: Impossible', 'Enola Holmes 2' and 'Bridgerton'. The first photos of Depp in character, alongside Andrea Riseborough in white as the Ghost of Christmas Past, were taken in London that same month.
- 12
Scrooge loose in New York
On 2 November 2026, Depp walked through New York's Bryant Park as Scrooge, fully in character: he threw Christmas cookies on the ground, knocked over a decorated tree and argued with people walking past. It wasn't the first time. In July he had turned up at San Diego Comic-Con in costume to launch the trailer.
- 13
A Friday the 13th release
'Ebenezer' opens in UK and US cinemas on 13 November 2026, which falls on a Friday. A date with plenty of history in horror, for a director like Ti West, who's coming off the 'X', 'Pearl' and 'MaXXXine' trilogy.
- 14
An 80 at the test screening
On 11 August 2026, Paramount's bosses went to Paramus, New Jersey, for a test screening. According to Puck, the film scored 80, against a historical norm of 72. And it wasn't expensive for what it is: around $38 million once the British tax credits are counted, according to The New York Times.
- 15
Back at a major studio
'Ebenezer' is Johnny Depp's first major studio film since 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald' (2018). He presented the first footage himself at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April 2026, telling the crowd he'd loved the story "since I was a little kid" and that West had done "something very special" with it.
- 16
The other 'A Christmas Carol'
'Ebenezer' isn't the only version in the works. In June 2025 Warner Bros. hired Robert Eggers, director of 'Nosferatu', to write and direct his own 'A Christmas Carol', with Willem Dafoe as his first choice for Scrooge. According to TheWrap, that project hasn't moved since, so there won't be a Scrooge showdown in cinemas this year.
