Ebenezer Tops Friday Box Office: Johnny Depp Back at No. 1 for the First Time Since 2018

Johnny Depp is back at number one. Ebenezer, Ti West’s gothic take on A Christmas Carol, took the top spot at the domestic box office on Friday with $7.1 million, including $1.5 million from Thursday previews, dethroning Godzilla Minus Zero and putting Depp at number one for the first time since Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018. The film is now pacing toward a domestic opening north of $20 million, according to Deadline, with a similar figure expected from 63 international markets — a worldwide opening of around $40 million.

The $20 million-plus opening would sit alongside Depp’s non-franchise openers Black Mass, which debuted with $22.6 million in 2015, and Public Enemies, which opened with $25.2 million in 2009. It is playing in 3,535 theatres, including Dolby Cinema, 4DX and D-Box screens. Behind it, The Cat in the Hat took $2.9 million on its second Friday, heading for a $12 million weekend and a $38.7 million total by Sunday.

The box office is running well ahead of the reviews. Ebenezer debuted at around 50 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes with a Metacritic score of 47, the critics split almost evenly over Depp’s Scrooge. But early audiences have been far warmer: the film holds a 90 per cent audience score in early reports, with 4.5 stars on PostTrak and a 63 per cent definite-recommend rating. That gap matters commercially: on a reported $38 million net budget, with Depp on a reported $5 million salary plus bonuses, the film does not need critics to love it. It needs families and Depp fans to turn up through Thanksgiving.

Here is the Filmverse take: the Friday number answers the only question that mattered about this film. The reviews were never going to decide Ebenezer’s fate — a 50-50 critical split is the most honest verdict on a film built around one of the most divisive actors alive. What the $7.1 million Friday proves is that audiences were willing to show up anyway, and that Paramount’s bet — a modest budget, a Christmas ghost story released on Friday the 13th, and a marketing spend that reportedly exceeded the production cost — was calibrated to exactly this outcome. Depp’s next Hollywood film, Day Drinker with Penélope Cruz, is already lined up; the comeback is now a question of how far it runs. Our review roundup: https://filmverse.in/ebenezer-reviews-johnny-depp-rotten-tomatoes-50-percent-critics-split/

Watch the official trailer 2 below:

Ebenezer, directed by Ti West and co-starring Ian McKellen, Rupert Grint, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley and Andrea Riseborough, is in theatres now.

Source: Deadline via MovieWeb and Innovative Business News, Variety, Entertainment Weekly and SSBCrack News. All box-office figures are trade estimates.

Team Filmverse

Filmverse is an independent entertainment news desk covering Bollywood and Indian cinema — news, trailers, reviews and box office, published daily from Mumbai.