Foxcatcher’s Bennett Miller plans a new Christmas Carol

Bennett Miller

by James White |
Published on

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is one of those stories that filmmakers just can't stop adapting. When even the Muppets have made an (admittedly wonderful) version, you do think there might not be many more ways to film it. Still, Foxcatcher director Bennett Miller disagrees, as he's looking to try.

Miller and Megan Ellison's Annapurna team have Tom Stoppard aboard to write the script for the new film, which will be set in the Dickens-appropriate 19th Century. Beyond that, nothing has been released about the film, which will presumably re-enact the story of miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghostly story of redemption that takes him through his past, present and potential future.

You do have do wonder if directors that try to use A Christmas Carol for their films end up visited by the spirit of Jacob Marley, warning them not to muck it up. After all, you're only competing with the likes of Brian Desmond Hurt's 1951 Alastair Sim-starring version and Richard Donner's Scrooged, which used Bill Murray to excellent effect as a TV executive who is shown the error of his ways. Still: if they hire Ian McKellen as Scrooge? We'd watch that.

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