There have been many feature adaptations of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol. Since the silent era, they’ve ranged from faithful (1951’s Scrooge, starring Alastair Sim in the title role) or whimsical (1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol), to musical (1970’s Albert Finney-starring Scrooge and 2022’s Spirited, with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell) or even animated (the performance-capture and CG-animated 2009 A Christmas Carol) and made-for-TV adaptations (1984’s George C. Scott-fronted A Christmas Carol, arguably the definitive version).
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Filmmaker Robert Eggers, behind such films as the folk horror The Witch and the gothic horror vampire movie Nosferatu, is reportedly developing what is sure to be a frightful version of A Christmas Carol. According to Deadline, Eggers is writing and will direct a retelling of Dickens’ classic for Warner Bros., with Eggers eyeing The Lighthouse and The Northman‘s Willem Dafoe to play Ebenezer Scrooge.
Eggers will first shoot his period piece Werwulf, a werewolf horror-thriller set in the 13th century, later this year. That film is set to open on Christmas Day 2026, the same window where Nosferatu sunk its teeth into $181 million at the global box office in 2024 to become Eggers’ highest-grossing film.
Harry Potter director Chris Columbus, producer on all of Eggers’ films with executive producer Elenor Columbus, are attached to produce Eggers’ A Christmas Carol via their Maiden Voyage Pictures for Warner Bros. The studio previously produced 1999’s A Christmas Carol, a made-for-television version starring Patrick Stewart as Scrooge.
A Christmas Carol is famously about the miserly, bah-humbugging Ebenezer Scrooge, who is haunted by three spirits: the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The “phantoms,” as they’re referred to by Dickens, are at times horrific, but the redemptive tale ends with a reformed Scrooge who “knew how to keep Christmas well.”
Eggers appears to have hinted at his version of A Christmas Carol last year. “I have five things going on, because you never know what’s going to work, what’s going to appeal to people, what’s going to be greenlit,” he told IndieWire. “[Nosferatu] was not greenlit three times. I absolutely thought I was making a movie that has not gotten greenlit twice instead of this, so you never know. You’ve got to have a lot of stuff going on.”
Eggers is also attached to write and direct a sequel to 1986’s Labyrinth for Sony’s TriStar and told IndieWire he “would like to do a Western at some point.”
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Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
