A Christmas Carol is a 2009 film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1843 story of the same name. The film is written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, and stars Jim Carrey in a multitude of roles, including Ebenezer Scrooge as a young, middle-aged, and old man, and the three ghosts who haunt Scrooge.
The 3-D film was produced through the process of performance capture, a technique Zemeckis has previously used in his films The Polar Express (2004) and Beowulf (2007).
A Christmas Carol began filming in February 2008, and will be released on November 6, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures. It will receive its world premiere in London, coinciding with the switching on of the annual Oxford Street and Regent Street Christmas lights, which in 2009 will have a Dickens theme.
The film will be released in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3-D. It will also be Disney’s third retelling of A Christmas Carol in 26 years, having released Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1983 (using the in-house Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck characters) and later distributing The Muppet Christmas Carol for Jim Henson Productions in 1992, with Disney later acquiring the rights to The Muppets from Jim Henson Productions.
Plot
A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey), who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one night. Mr. Scrooge is a financier/money-changer who has devoted his life to the accumulation of wealth. He holds anything other than money in contempt, including friendship, love and the Christmas season. But an encounter with the ghostly figure of Jacob Marley (Gary Oldman) sets the stage for a mysterious and magical encounter with three phantasmic beings to help him realize the true magic of Christmas itself.
Starring:
- Jim Carrey as:
- Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character of the film. He is a cold-hearted, tight fisted, greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness.
- The Ghost of Christmas Past, the first of the three spirits that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent. It shows Scrooge scenes from his past that occurred on or around Christmas, in order to demonstrate to him the necessity of changing his ways.
- The Ghost of Christmas Present, the second of the three spirits that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent. He shows Scrooge the happiness of his nephew’s middle-class social circle and the impoverished Cratchit family.
- The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the third of the three spirits that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent. He shows Scrooge the final consequences of his lifestyle if he doesn’t change his ways.
