Johnny Depp doesn’t do things halfway. When the actor decided to make his first big public appearance in years, he didn’t walk a red carpet or sit for a soft-focus interview. He turned San Diego’s Gaslamp District into a full-blown Victorian Christmas village, put on a top hat and cane, and became Ebenezer Scrooge in the middle of July.
Yes, July. In 80-degree San Diego heat. Complete with Christmas carolers.
The Setup Fans Didn’t See Coming
Depp is starring as the title character in “Ebenezer,” Paramount’s new take on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” directed by Ti West. To promote it, the studio quietly built out a fake 1880s British storefront called “Scrooge and Marley” in the Gaslamp district. Fans started gathering around noon on Thursday just sensing something was up, and by 2:30 p.m. the crowd had grown into a full mob waiting to see what Paramount had planned.
What they got was Depp himself, emerging from the shop door already in full character. Greying sideburns, dramatic facial prosthetics, a long black coat and cape, cane in hand. He was, by every account, nearly unrecognizable.
“Have You No Jobs?”
True to Scrooge form, Depp didn’t break character once. He growled his way through the crowd, cracking lines like “Have you no jobs? It seems as though you have so much spare time,” and reportedly slipped in a jab about Trump-era tariffs for good measure. He spent close to half an hour riffing with fans, some of whom showed up cosplaying his own past characters, Captain Jack Sparrow and the Mad Hatter included, giving him plenty of material to work with.
From there, Depp crashed Collider’s “Directors on Directing” panel inside Hall H, still fully in character, mumbling in that unmistakable Scrooge growl while introducing the “Ebenezer” trailer to a packed house. The trailer reportedly closes with Depp’s Scrooge turning to camera and delivering the line, “It’s good to be back.”
Given everything Depp has been through publicly over the past several years, that line landed with a little extra weight.
A Genuine Comeback Moment
This appearance matters beyond the costume theatrics. It’s Depp’s first major studio film since 2023’s “Jeanne du Barry,” and for a lot of fans, his first real return to a big, splashy blockbuster rollout in years. He’s kept a relatively low profile since his high-profile legal battles, popping up occasionally at things like the 2025 Red Sea Film Festival and April’s CinemaCon, but this was different. This was Depp fully leaning into a character, working a crowd, and clearly enjoying himself in front of thousands of fans and a wall of cameras.
“Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol” also stars Ian McKellen, Rupert Grint, Daisy Ridley, Sam Claflin, Andrea Riseborough, Tramell Tillman, and more, giving it one of the more stacked casts of the holiday movie season. The film hits theaters November 13, which means Paramount essentially just kicked off its Christmas marketing campaign in the middle of summer, and it worked. Clips of Depp in character spread across social media within minutes.
Why This Stunt Actually Worked
Comic-Con is packed with surprise appearances every year, but most of them blur together. A cast walks out, waves, says a few lines, and exits. What made this one stick is that Depp fully committed. He didn’t appear as himself promoting a role, he appeared as the role. No interviews breaking character, no wink to the camera. Just Scrooge, in the middle of summer, telling a crowd of costumed superheroes and Comic-Con regulars to get a job.
It’s the kind of moment that’s tailor-made for viral clips, and it’s clearly working exactly as intended. Whether or not “Ebenezer” ends up being a critical hit in November, Depp just guaranteed the film will be part of the conversation heading into the holiday season.
For an actor whose name has carried a lot of baggage over the past few years, showing up in full Scrooge regalia and getting a crowd of thousands to cheer him on might be exactly the reset moment his career needed.
