Johnny Depp makes his long-awaited return as Scrooge in the first Ebenezer trailer

The team behind Ebenezer released the trailer of the upcoming Christmas fantasy movie this Thursday. It stars Johnny Depp as the cantankerous and stingy titular character of Charles Dickens' 1843 novel A Christmas Carol. The Christmas fantasy movie is special for fans of Depp, as this movie marks the actor's return to Hollywood after appearing in nothing but international productions for a while.

For the uninitiated, the movie adapts A Christmas Carol to a modern-day audience. The trailer for the upcoming fantasy movie was revealed at SDCC yesterday, and it was presented on stage by Depp himself. Based on the trailer, it seems the movie is closely following the plot of its source material.

Johnny Depp is a cranky curmudgeon in the first Ebenezer trailer:

The trailer opens with a shot of London during winter as snow begins to fall. Then we see words paying homage to Depp's past iconic roles like Captain Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands. The scene cuts to the Pirates of the Caribbean actor's latest unrecognizable avatar in the upcoming Christmas fantasy flick.

The camera follows Johnny Depp's Scrooge from behind as people react to him. Then throughout the rest of the trailer, we see him being rude to everyone, including his own loved ones. But Ebenezer Scrooge's life changes as he is visited by ghosts that will have a profound impact on him by the end of the movie.

We also catch brief glimpses of other actors like Daisy Ridley, Sam Claflin, Sir Ian McKellen, and Rupert Grint, who are confirmed to appear in the movie.

What do we know about the movie?

Paramount Pictures Ebenezer's Office Activation at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 - Source: Getty

As mentioned earlier, the fantasy movie will follow the plot of the Charles Dickens classic slowly. It would follow Scrooge, a cranky old man, who isn't very welcoming to strangers, nor does he care for his loved ones. But an encounter with the ghost of his business partner, Jacob Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come changes his life forever.

Not the first adaptation of this story, it looks like the upcoming Johnny Depp movie is following the source material's story and time period closely. It seems that the basic excitement for the movie stems from the project being Depp's first Hollywood project in a while. Apart from that, the jury is still out there regarding the movie, as it is one of the many adaptations of the 19th-century Charles Dickens classic.

But based on this week's SDCC trailer, it seems that this new adaptation isn't going to introduce anything new to a long-adapted storyline. However, the official logline seems to suggest that there is more to this movie than what we saw in the trailer:

"This November, Johnny Depp is Ebenezer Scrooge. The name you know, the story you don’t. From Ti West, EBENEZER also stars Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Charlie Murphy, with Tramell Tillman and Ian McKellen."

What did you think about the trailer?