Two Horror Directors Are Giving Us Christmas Carol Movies (And One Sounds Way Better)

We're getting not one, but two "Christmas Carol" movies — and to be honest, one sounds really good. The other does not!

Last year, auteur Robert Eggers released his take on the vampire genre — ironically, on Christmas Day in 2024 — with "Nosferatu," which stars Bill Skarsgård as the titular bloodsucker alongside Lily-Rose Depp as Nosferatu's object of affection Ellen Hutter, Nicholas Hoult as Helen's beleaguered husband Thomas, and Willem Dafoe as a professor who tries to help the couple. That's why it's particularly exciting that, of all people, Eggers is working on a "Christmas Carol" movie that he's both writing and directing. Plus, when the news broke about this project in June 2025, we also learned that Dafoe might end up playing Ebenezer Scrooge — the main character of Charles Dickens' original story who has to learn the true meaning of Christmas under significant nocturnal duress. (I don't know about you, but the idea of being visited by three ghosts while you're trying to get some shut-eye doesn't sound fun at all.)

Now, there's a second "Christmas Carol" movie in the works, and with all due respect to writer-director Ti West, I am ... not particularly excited for his Paramount project "Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol," which is set to star Johnny Depp and is (as of this writing) slated for a late 2026 theatrical release (per Variety). Not only can we absolutely trust Eggers to breathe new life into such a familiar story, but also West working with Depp is a deeply confounding choice on about 10 different levels.

Throughout his career, Robert Eggers has tackled horror, drama, and psychological thrills with movies like "The Witch," "The Northman," "The Lighthouse," and, of course, "Nosferatu" — but I feel like it's important to note that he tends to traffic in period pieces, making him a really great choice for anything set in Dickensian England (like, say, "A Christmas Carol"). We still don't definitively know if Eggers will tap his frequent collaborator Willem Dafoe — who worked specifically on "The Lighthouse," "The Northman," and "Nosferatu" and is also set to appear in Eggers' other upcoming project, "Werwulf" — to play Ebenezer Scrooge, but that would be a phenomenal casting choice. Dafoe is, obviously, an incredibly versatile and talented performer with decades of experience under his belt, but he also tends to thrive in Eggers' richly-drawn historical horror movies (and not for nothing, but he's definitely got the ideal look and vibe for the misanthropic Scrooge).

Eggers' movies are always set in long-ago times and places, and he excels at creating a vivid, thorough world that existed long before filmgoers sat down for his latest project. "A Christmas Carol" made with Eggers' sensibilities and style is probably going to be really, really good — seriously, the guy's track record speaks for itself at this point. So, what do we do with this opposing project?

If you're not familiar with Ti West, he's the guy behind the "X" trilogy ("X," "Pearl," and "MaXXXine"), a trio of films released between 2022 and 2024 that focuses on Mia Goth's dual role as Maxine Minx and Pearl — and while "Pearl" (the latter character's origin story) is, in fact, a period piece, it's not exactly reaching the heights of Robert Eggers' historical filmography. Then there's the Johnny Depp of it all.

I don't need to get into the weeds regarding Depp, but suffice to say that the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star has faced a lot of media scrutiny throughout the past several years due to a number of issues, including his breathlessly covered legal battle against his ex-wife Amber Heard. In 2020, Depp dropped out of the "Fantastic Beasts" franchise, where he played Grindelwald (and was ultimately replaced by Mads Mikkelsen), and the movies he made not long before and after that, like "Black Mass" and "Minamata," didn't exactly receive much critical acclaim (or performed particularly well at the box office). Basically, all signs point to Depp being a fading star, and that's without even mentioning years of accusations from co-stars about bad on-set behavior. Depp is, for so many reasons, a frankly absurd choice to play Ebenezer Scrooge, especially when you remember that there's a version of the same story in the works that might star Willem freakin' Dafoe.

Eggers' "A Christmas Carol" doesn't have a release date yet. Meanwhile, "Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol" is currently set to arrive on November 13, 2026, assuming all the pieces fall into place. We'll see how it goes, I guess!