New Delhi, July 30 -- Victorian carolers were singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" outside a mock Victorian storefront in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter when a figure appeared in an upstairs window. He wore a black cape, a battered top hat, a hooked nose prosthetic, and the particular scowl of a man who has spent a long time deciding what he thinks about all of this. Johnny Depp, in full character as Ebenezer Scrooge, studied the crowd below, then stepped into the street.

"It's good to be back."

The line is Scrooge's. Whether anyone in that room took it as only Scrooge's is another matter.

Ebenezer, directed by Ti West and distributed by Paramount Pictures, opens in theaters November 13 and represents the most significant Hollywood studi...