Movies
Edgar Wright Could Resurrect Johnny Depp As ‘Kolchak’
Now that Edgar Wright isn’t working with Marvel anymore on an adaptation to Ant-Man, it clears the Shaun of the Dead director up for something else.
I was originally saddened by his exit, presumably over creative differences, only it turned out to be a blessing or us horror fans.
According to Deadline, Wright could be stepping right into the Disney remake of the great TV series “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”.
Wright has been developing this for Johnny Depp to play the tabloid news reporter, played by Darren McGavin in the original ’70s movie and series. Kolchak covered crime for a tabloid and his cases always led to supernatural perpetrators that included zombies, vampires, werewolves and aliens.
The script by D.V. DeVincentis is in strong shape, says the site, adding that much of this depends on the availability of Depp, who’s playing Whitey Bulger in Black Mass right now and is supposed to make another Pirates of the Caribbean movie either later this year or early next.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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