Andy Serkis haunts Scrooge in FX's chilling A Christmas Carol trailer
Charles Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol gets even more dark and gritty in the first full-length trailer for FX’s miniseries adaptation.
“It is the place where Christmas comes to die,” says Andy Serkis, whose latest dramatic transformation sees him as the Ghost of Christmas Past. For someone as vile as Guy Pearce‘s Ebenezer Scrooge, the specters arrive to match his callous regard for the less fortunate with haunting visions.
“What makes this version original is the depth that it mines,” Pearce once told EW. “[Writer] Steven [Knight] tries to be faithful to the original but digs deeper and explores the past that Scrooge has experienced, to a level that will perhaps make audiences more uncomfortable than they were while watching [a previous iteration of ] A Christmas Carol.” We see how some of that takes shape in the new footage.
The vision quest cursed upon Ebenezer by the spirits that will haunt him for his past acts on Christmas Eve will take him to mines, where miners scream as the ceiling collapses on them; to factories, where workers slave away at sewing machines; and war zones, where bloodied, charred forms scream out to him. Ebenezer deserves it, though. Before this fateful night, we see him offering Mrs. Cratchit (Vinette Robinson) money to help her ailing son, but only if she gives him a sexual favor.
“I am a woman, and I have the power to summon such spirits,” she warns the man. “And I f—ing will.”
The Favourite‘s Joe Alwyn also features as Bob Crachit, Ebenezer’s lowly worker. Stephen Graham plays the ghost of Ebenezer’s late business partner Jacob Marley, Charlotte Riley plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Jason Flemyng plays the menacing Ghost of Christmas Future.
A Christmas Carol, directed by Nick Murphy (The Awakening, Spike TV’s The Mist), will premiere Thursday, Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT on FX.
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