Hollywood banks on Ebenezer to bring Johnny Depp in from the cold

Dickens character is actor’s first big studio role after years overshadowed by legal battles with ex-wife Amber Heard

“It’s good to be back,” Johnny Depp declares in the trailer for Ebenezer, in which he stars as Charles Dickens’s miserly Scrooge – his first big Hollywood studio production in eight years.

The message is clear: this is Depp’s comeback, after years in which his career was overshadowed by legal battles with his former wife Amber Heard.

Paramount has made a point of invoking Depp’s most famous roles – the trailer opens with references to Captain Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands and the Mad Hatter, before announcing: “The master of misfits returns.”