Scrooged Gets 4K Release for 35th Anniversary

November 23rd, 1988, saw the release of Scrooged, an updated take on a familiar favorite: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Directed by Richard Donner, the Christmas comedy stars Bill Murray as Frank Cross, a mean-spirited TV executive and modern-day “Scrooge.” With Frank’s network staging an ambitious live broadcast of “A Christmas Carol” on Christmas Eve, his miserly mentor (John Forsythe) returns from beyond the grave with a warning. Frank is to be visited by three ghosts: the maniacal cabbie (David Johansen) of Christmas Past, the punch-packing fairy Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane), and the grim Ghost of Christmas Future(Robert Hammond). 

To mark the 35th anniversary of the film this November, Paramount Home Media Distribution will release Scrooged for the first time on 4K UHD. The essential holiday classic is newly remastered and includes hours of never-before-released special features. “Yule” be able to own Scrooged 4K on November 7th (pre-order here at Amazon). 

The official description: “High-spiritedhigh jinks on Christmas Eve put Frank Cross (Murray) in a ghostlytime warp in this hilarious take-off of Charles Dickens’ ‘A ChristmasCarol.’ Cross, who has made the meteoric rise from the depths of themailroom to TV network president, is mean, nasty, uncaring, unforgivingand has a sadistic sense of humor — perfect qualities for a modern-dayScrooge. Before the night is over, he’ll be visited by a maniacal NewYork cab driver from the past, a present-day fairy who’s into pratfallsand, finally, a ghoulish, seven-foot headless messenger from the future.”

Murray leads a cast that includes Karen Allen as Claire Phillips, Frank’s lost love; Alfre Woodard as Grace Cooley, Frank’s personal assistant; John Glover as scheming network consultant Brice Cummings; Robert Mitchum as Frank’s boss, IBC Television president Preston Rhinelander; Bob Goldthwait as the scorned ex-employee Eliot Loudermilk; and John Forsythe, David Johansen, Carol Kane, and Robert Hammond as Frank’s spirited visitors.

“To me, Scroogedis a film about love, the redemptive power of love. I think that’s thestory that Charles Dickens wrote as well,” Allen recalled for the film’s 30th anniversary in a 2018 Vulture interview. ” In that sense, thesecharacters are not meant to be realistic, which is why it’s such astylistically heightened film. So to play Claire and Frank, you have tofind something that really grounds your characters. That was the key toit for me: Claire had loved Frank since she was a young girl or woman,and there was something that had never gone away even though he had kindof become another person.”

The 35th Anniversary Scrooged 4K edition is out November 7th from Paramount.