Paramount Projects a $40 Million Opening for Dickens Adaptation 'Ebenezer'
Paramount Pictures expects its new film 'Ebenezer' to open with $20 million in North American ticket sales and another $20 million overseas, according to projections the studio gave The Hollywood Reporter. Those are projections, not results. The film will be released in more than 3,500 locations in the United States and Canada.
The film is a new adaptation of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', the 1843 story of a miserly old man visited by ghosts. Ti West directed it. Paramount is putting it into more than 3,500 cinemas across North America, a wide launch that gives it room to find audiences quickly.
The studio's projection puts 'Ebenezer' at No. 1 at the North American box office in its opening weekend. That would be a rare top spot for a film in a crowded weekend, and the competition is strong. David Leitch's 'How to Rob a Bank' is also opening in the same frame. Its domestic launch is expected in the high single-digit millions, against a budget of $40 million.
The release has drawn attention for its star history. Trade coverage has framed it as a possible career comeback for Johnny Depp, whose work has been at the centre of a long public dispute. Warner Bros. removed Depp from the 'Fantastic Beasts' series in 2018, after he lost a libel case in Britain against the publisher of The Sun. In 2022, he won a defamation trial in the United States against his ex-wife, Amber Heard. Depp has denied her abuse allegations.
Depp was once one of Hollywood's best-paid actors. Trade reports put his earnings at $50 million or more, counting backend payments, for the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' sequels and the 2010 live-action 'Alice in Wonderland'. A backend is a share of profits paid after the studio has recovered its costs, so the actual amount depends on how a film performs.
Paramount greenlit 'Ebenezer' shortly after David Ellison's Skydance Media took over the studio. A greenlight is the formal decision to fund a film and start production, and it is usually made by studio executives. The choice to back a Dickens adaptation in this period is one of the early calls made under new ownership.
Stanford University's Adrian Daub, who directs the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, has studied the online debate around the Depp and Heard trial. His work looks at how social media reacted to the case, a conversation that has followed Depp's return to the screen.
The opening numbers will show whether the studio's projections hold. Box-office figures come first as studio estimates on Sunday, with confirmed totals published the following day.
