Apple Lands A Christmas Carol Starring Ryan Reynolds & Will Ferrell

You can expect more stories like this now that Apple is in the original content game. The newest players in the streaming content world have just landed the rights to a live-action musical based on Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. The new film will be directed by Daddy’s Home duo Sean Anders and John Morris. Apple managed to best Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. for the film, which will once again revisit the world of Dickens’ most enduring miser, Ebeneezer Scrooge.

The news comes courtesy The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, the latter of which reported that Apple has dished out a lot of money to make the deal happen. Reynolds and Ferrell stand to make a huge payday, thanks in part to the fact that streaming services like Apple pay for what stars would usually get in back-end box office profit sharing. Apple is also believed to have obtained the rights to the original music that’s being written for A Christmas Carol.

As for who the two stars are playing, that remains a mystery. The smart money would probably be on Will Ferrell as Ebenezer Scrooge, but perhaps they’ll get clever with the characters and give the younger Reynolds the role of the grumpy, greedy old man. There’s also all those ghosts (Christmas Past, Present, and Future), Jacob Marley, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit and many more roles to cast. A Christmas Carol has been made quite a few times—Ebeneezer Scrooge has been played by Patrick Stewart in 1999’s TV movie, George C. Scott in the 1984 TV movie, and Alastair Sim way back in 1951’s film. Writer/director Robert Zemeckis put out an animated version of the story in 2009, starring Jim Carrey (not only as Scrooge but as the Ghost of Christmas Past and several other characters). There’s also an upcoming fantasy miniseries version of A Christmas Carol, starring Guy Pearce as Scrooge and Andy Serkis as the Ghost of Christmas Past. It seems we can’t get enough of the Victorian-era miser who needs a trio of ghosts to take him on a journey of self-discovery.

As for the version that Reynolds, Ferrell and the gang are bringing to Apple, you can be sure it’ll be going for big laughs—and a whole lot of eyeballs—when it streams.

Featured image: SANTA MONICA, CA – DECEMBER 11: Actor Ryan Reynolds attends The 22nd Annual Critics’ Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on December 11, 2016 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images).