'Ebenezer' leads Friday box office as Paramount expects $20 million debut

Johnny Depp's “Ebenezer” topped Friday's North American box office with $6.7 million, marking his first major studio feature since 2018, while “How to Rob a Bank” earned $2.2 million.

Depp plays Ebenezer Scrooge in the Paramount Pictures adaptation of Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol,” which Ti West directed. The production cost $38 million and opened across 3,535 theaters. Its Friday figure includes Thursday previews.

PostTrak data showed that half the people who saw the film cited Depp as their reason for seeing it, The Hollywood Reporter reported. On opening Thursday night, 62% of the audience was older than 30.

On Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of critics approved of the film. In an earlier review for The Hollywood Reporter, critic Frank Scheck wrote that it “fulfills its ostensible goal of restoring the actor to A-list status.”

Moviegoers were more favorable. The PG-13 film received an A- from CinemaScore audiences and 4.5 out of 5 stars in PostTrak polling.

Depp's return to studio films

Paramount's campaign featured Depp as Scrooge, with a surprise appearance in character at San Diego Comic-Con. The project marked the first big greenlight under Paramount's new administration following the Skydance merger last year.

Previews started at 2 p.m. Thursday and generated $1.5 million. That was less than the $3.7 million Amazon MGM's “Red One” collected in previews.

Deadline said Ti West genre fans did not attend in large numbers Friday night, and the hope was that families would come Saturday. By Saturday morning, Paramount still anticipated a $20 million domestic debut, though rival studios expected less, Deadline said.

That $20 million opening would put “Ebenezer” near the starts of Depp's “Black Mass,” which took $22.6 million in 2015, and 2009's “Public Enemies,” which earned $25.2 million.

Variety projected a weekend take of $18 million to $20 million.

Paramount expected an additional $20 million across 63 international markets. Deadline and Variety put the prospective worldwide opening at around $38 million to $40 million.

Depp's previous major studio feature was “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” in 2018. In 2020, Warner Bros. fired him from the “Harry Potter” spinoff series after he lost a libel case against British tabloid The Sun, which had called him a “wife beater,” Variety reported.

His ex-wife Amber Heard accused Depp of domestic abuse, which he has denied. Depp won a U.S. defamation trial against Heard in 2022.

“How to Rob a Bank” opens

Amazon MGM Studios' “How to Rob a Bank” took $2.2 million, including previews, from 2,810 theaters Friday. David Leitch directed the R-rated film about bank robbers who broadcast their heists on social media.

The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline forecast around $4.7 million for the weekend, while Variety estimated $4.75 million. The Hollywood Reporter said the $40 million production was opening well below Leitch's “Bullet Train,” which debuted domestically at $30 million in 2022.

CinemaScore audiences gave the film a B-, compared with an A- for Leitch's previous film, “The Fall Guy.”

Rotten Tomatoes recorded approval from 33% of critics and an 80% audience score. The Hollywood Reporter's chief film critic David Rooney wrote in an earlier review that “the fun wears a bit thin.”

The film ranked third Friday, but Variety expected it to finish No. 7 for the weekend behind several holdovers.

Deadline estimated that all films would bring in around $80 million for the weekend, an 8% increase from the same weekend a year earlier. Lionsgate's “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” opens next weekend, and Deadline said it could debut at $100 million.