Robert Eggers to Direct A Christmas Carol for Warner Bros.
Filmmaker Robert Eggers brings his signature gothic style to Dickens’ classic, with Chris Columbus producing and Willem Dafoe in early talks for Scrooge.
Los Angeles, June 12: Acclaimed filmmaker Robert Eggers is heading into new territory, but with a story that’s long haunted the holiday season. Eggers is officially on board to adapt Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for Warner Bros. Pictures, joining hands with Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus, who will produce under their Maiden Voyage banner.
Eggers, who has built a career on dark historical films, isn’t abandoning his trademark atmosphere—he’s just wrapping it in holly and fog this time. Known for richly textured period dramas like The Lighthouse and The Northman, Eggers now sets his sights on one of literature’s most retold ghost stories. But this version? It won’t be cozy fires and sugarplums. Not with Eggers at the helm.
A Bleak Holiday Classic, Reimagined
Originally published in 1843, A Christmas Carol remains one of Dickens’ most enduring works. At its center is Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter man haunted by the past, who is forced to confront the life he’s lived—and the life he still might redeem—through a series of ghostly encounters. While many adaptations have softened the edges of the story, Eggers is expected to let the cold air in.
The director’s fascination with moral decay and spectral dread makes this source material feel like a natural evolution, not a departure. With The Witch, he showed what happens when faith and fear collide. In Nosferatu, he proved that horror doesn’t need jump scares—it needs shadows, silence, and conviction.
Willem Dafoe Reportedly in Talks to Play Scrooge
According to reports from Collider, Willem Dafoe is currently in early discussions to play the role of Scrooge. The actor, who has already teamed up with Eggers multiple times, including in The Lighthouse and Nosferatu, brings a haunting physicality to every role he plays. Should the deal go through, it would mark their fourth collaboration—a creative partnership rooted in tension, nuance, and mutual trust.
Casting Dafoe wouldn’t just be a coup for the film—it would set the tone. Scrooge, under Dafoe, could shift from caricature to something more existential. Less “Bah humbug,” more deep regret and raw reckoning.
Chris Columbus Joins to Broaden the Appeal
Also attached is Chris Columbus, the filmmaker behind Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films. Columbus brings a wealth of experience in telling emotionally rich stories that still play to a wide audience. Partnering with Eggers again—after producing Nosferatu—shows he’s not afraid of going dark, as long as there’s soul beneath it.
His daughter Eleanor Columbus also returns as co-producer, helping to balance the film’s eerie elements with its emotional core. The Columbus touch may ensure this adaptation doesn’t veer too far into arthouse territory, allowing it to resonate with longtime fans of the story as well as new ones.
Robert Eggers: Riding the Momentum of Nosferatu
Eggers steps into A Christmas Carol fresh off the critical and commercial success of Nosferatu. Released in December by Focus Features, the film earned over $180 million globally, establishing Eggers as a filmmaker who can straddle the line between genre and prestige. The film’s success also laid the groundwork for Werwulf, a werewolf feature he’s directing next, due for release on Christmas Day 2026.
With Werwulf and A Christmas Carol both centered around Christmas releases, Eggers seems to be carving out a very different kind of holiday tradition—one with dread, drama, and enough darkness to make the lights twinkle harder.
A Victorian Setting With Contemporary Weight
While Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as a parable about greed and redemption in Victorian England, its relevance today is striking. The wealth gap, the apathy of the powerful, and the question of whether people can truly change—these aren’t 19th-century ideas. They’re as current as ever.
Eggers has shown time and again that he can mine the past to speak to the present. With Dickens’s words as the blueprint, and his vision behind the lens, this adaptation could explore not just the ghosts of Christmas—but the ghosts of conscience, of legacy, and of lost humanity.
Release Date Under Wraps, But the Atmosphere Is Set
There’s no official release date yet, but industry insiders expect A Christmas Carol to move into development after Werwulf wraps production. That places its theatrical debut tentatively in late 2027, though Warner Bros. has not confirmed the timeline.
What’s certain is that this won’t be a sugar-coated holiday retelling. With Eggers’s obsession for detail and historical texture, expect every alleyway, gaslamp, and graveyard to look like it’s been pulled from a Victorian fever dream.
Final Word
Robert Eggers’ A Christmas Carol isn’t just another remake—it’s a reawakening. In the hands of a director who sees ghosts not as gimmicks but as emotional catalysts, Dickens’s old tale could become something startlingly new. With Columbus shaping the foundation and Dafoe potentially leading the cast, Warner Bros. is assembling a team that knows how to haunt, and how to heal.
Because sometimes, the most enduring holiday stories aren’t about miracles. They’re about the people who need them most.
Stay updated with the latest in fashion, lifestyle, and celebrity stories—straight from the world of Debonair.
Follow us on Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, Youtube, and Linkedin for daily style and culture drops.
