Paramount’s Ebenezer, Ti West’s take on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with Johnny Depp as Ebenezer Scrooge, opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. The official site says the film is “only in theatres November 13,” and the movie now carries a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association.
Ten days before opening, most of the basic details are on the record. The rating, the running time and the trailer history all come from official listings, while some character names still rest on press reports. Here is where each piece stands as of Nov. 3, 2026.
Ebenezer release date and key facts
The table below pulls the core details from Paramount’s site, the MPA’s ratings database and the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which publishes exact running times.
| Detail | What the record shows | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. release | Nov. 13, 2026, in theaters only | Official site |
| U.S. rating | PG-13 for frightening material (certificate No. 56115) | FilmRatings.com |
| U.K. rating | 12A for moderate horror, threat and violence; classified Oct. 22, 2026 | BBFC |
| Running time | 115 minutes, 56 seconds (about 1 hour, 56 minutes) | BBFC |
| Director | Ti West | Official site |
| Screenplay | Nathaniel Halpern | Official site |
| Producer | Emma Watts | Official site |
The MPA’s FilmRatings.com database lists Paramount Pictures Corporation as the rated party and gives the reason as “frightening material.” The BBFC record lists the same Nov. 13 date for the U.K. release and gives an approximate running time of 116 minutes.
On format, the official site and Paramount’s trailer descriptions we checked say only that the film is in theaters. Neither names IMAX, Dolby Cinema or any other premium screen, so those formats are not officially confirmed in the material we reviewed.
From “Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol” to “Ebenezer”
The project started under a longer name. Variety reported in October 2025 that Depp was in final talks to star in Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol for Paramount, with West directing from Halpern’s script. That report already named Nov. 13, 2026, as the studio’s target date.
Paramount’s marketing now uses the shorter title. Its official synopsis calls the film “a thrilling reimagining” of the ghost story, in which Scrooge faces his past, present and future on one Christmas Eve.
Who plays whom in the cast
Paramount’s site lists the cast in this order: Depp, Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Charlie Murphy, “with Tramell Tillman” and “Ian McKellen.” It names Depp as Scrooge but does not give character names for the rest.
Most character names come from press reports. A PA Media report on the first trailer identified three of them, and entertainment sites have filled in others.
| Actor | Role | Reported by |
|---|---|---|
| Johnny Depp | Ebenezer Scrooge | Paramount |
| Ian McKellen | Jacob Marley | PA Media |
| Rupert Grint | Bob Cratchit | PA Media |
| Andrea Riseborough | Ghost of Christmas Past | PA Media |
| Tramell Tillman | Ghost of Christmas Present | Dark Horizons, HollywoodLife |
| Sam Claflin | Fred | Dark Horizons, HollywoodLife |
| Arthur Conti | Young Ebenezer | Dark Horizons |
| Ellie Bamber | A Fezziwig (Isabel, per HollywoodLife) | Dark Horizons, HollywoodLife |
| Charlie Murphy | A Fezziwig | Dark Horizons |
| Daisy Ridley | Reports differ (see below) | — |
| Henry Lloyd-Hughes | Not given in coverage we checked | — |
Ridley’s part is the one open question. Dark Horizons lists her as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, while HollywoodLife lists her as Emily Cratchit. The official site, as checked on Nov. 3, gave no role list that settles it.
One cast member has shared the screen with Depp before. Claflin played the missionary Philip in 2011’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth film in the series covered in our Pirates of the Caribbean cast then-and-now guide.
Trailers and how the campaign unfolded
Paramount first showed footage at CinemaCon in April 2026, HollywoodLife reported. The first public trailer arrived three months later, at San Diego Comic-Con.
According to TheWrap, Depp introduced the footage in character at a directors’ panel in Hall H, and Paramount released the trailer right after. A second, longer trailer followed in October. Dates and lengths below come from Paramount’s YouTube channel.
| Video | Posted | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Official Trailer | July 23, 2026 | 1:21 |
| Official Trailer 2 | Oct. 1, 2026 | 2:36 |
The BBFC record also lists three trailer cuts classified for U.K. cinemas between Oct. 2 and Oct. 13, running 55 seconds, 2 minutes 38 seconds and 1 minute.
Tickets and a Regal charity offer
The official site now has a “Get Tickets” button and a showtimes page. We did not find a separate Paramount announcement of a presale start date.
The site does describe a holiday tie-in with Regal. For every Ebenezer ticket bought from Regal through Nov. 13, Paramount and Regal will donate $1 to the charity No Kid Hungry, up to $50,000 in total, the site says. That makes opening day the last day the offer applies.
What the film means for Depp
Trade coverage has often framed the film around Depp’s career. When the casting news broke, Variety wrote that it would be Depp’s “first role from a major studio since 2018’s” Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Variety also noted that he was fired from that franchise after losing a libel case against the British tabloid The Sun.
Since then, his screen work has come through smaller films. Variety named Minamata and Jeanne du Barry, and PA Media said Ebenezer marks his first live-action movie role since 2023. PA also noted that in 2022 Depp successfully sued his former partner, Amber Heard, over a 2018 Washington Post article she wrote.
No critics’ reviews had been published in a search we ran on Nov. 3. For now, the clearest outside account of the film’s content is the BBFC’s short note: “moderate horror, threat, violence.”
Featured image: Johnny Depp at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2020. Photo: Harald Krichel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
