You’ve seen A Christmas Carol … probably more times than you can count. Muppets, muppets again, Jim Carrey, Guy Pearce, maybe even Patrick Stewart. But now it’s getting the darkest makeover yet.
Robert Eggers, the director behind some of the most terrifying cult horror films The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman and, most recently, Nosferatu, is writing and directing a new film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ghostly festive classic.
The project is in development at Warner Bros. with Chris Columbus, the Home Alone and Harry Potter guy, on board as producer.
And before you ask: no, it’s not heart-warming. At least, not in the way we have become used to.
Eggers is best known for eerie, atmospheric period horror with a taste for the unsettling. His Nosferatu remake, released last year, made over $180 million globally and featured a cast including Bill Skarsgård, Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp. S
o it’s fair to assume this Christmas Carol might lean more “Victorian dread” than “Tiny Tim triumph.”
It’s not his first foray into adapting well-trodden material. With The Northman, he took Viking legends and turned them into a brutal, surreal revenge tale. With The Lighthouse, he dropped Robert Pattinson and Dafoe into a black-and-white spiral of madness. Eggers doesn’t just tell stories - he warps them.
There’s no casting news yet, but Dickens’ 1843 novella is already steeped in gothic elements just screaming to be explored: ghosts, regret, death, time travel (sort of). In Eggers’ hands, it could finally become the full-blown psychological horror it was arguably meant to be.
If you're unfamiliar with Eggers, he's the kind of director who once said, “The idea of having to photograph a car makes me ill.” He doesn’t do modern. Or cheerful. That means no festive jumpers or cosy hearths here — just shadowy alleyways, clanking chains, and maybe Scrooge screaming into the void.
Eggers is currently working on Werwulf, a werewolf horror film set for release in 2026, but A Christmas Carol looks set to follow, possibly in time for Christmas 2027.
So while most of us are preparing for yet another Mariah Carey/Colin Firth-flavoured holiday season, Eggers is sharpening the icicles. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
