'A Christmas Carol' Trailer: Guy Pearce Hates Christmas In FX's Dark Reimagining

We're just over a month away from Christmas, and while that means we're going to be spending lots of time in theaters catching up on some of the year's best movies, FX is giving us something else to watch in our downtime at home. The cable channel is airing a "dark reimagining" of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' classic tale of Ebenezer Scrooge as he's guilted into transforming from a penny-pinching, Christmas-hating miser into the world's best boss. But if you're looking for a lighthearted version of this story, look elsewhere: Guy Pearce's Scrooge adds "sex creep" to his character's long list of terrible attributes in this one.

In our /Film Slack channel, we've joked about how Pearce might be playing a Hot Scrooge Who Fucks in this version. But after watching this trailer, I immediately regret all of those jokes, because this Scrooge is creepy as hell. I mean, he's always been an awful, greedy character, but adding "sex pest" to his list of transgressions by essentially forcing Mrs. Cratchit to disrobe in front of him takes things to a new level, and will almost certainly make his ultimate redemption harder to achieve in the audience's eyes. I'll give it credit for this, though: this sucker looks expensive. Period pieces don't come cheap, and it looks like they're going all-out to recreate the dirty, grimy streets of London (only to set them ablaze).

Steven Knight (Locke, Peaky Blinders) wrote the script, and he's producing alongside Tom Hardy and Ridley Scott while Nick Murphy (The Mist, The Awakening) is directing. In addition to Pearce, the project stars Andy Serkis as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Charlotte Riley as Lottie/the Ghost of Christmas Present, Jason Flemyng as the Ghost of Christmas Future, Stephen Graham as Jacob Marley, Joe Alwyn as Bob Cratchit, Vinette Robinson as Mary Cratchit, Kayvan Novak as Ali Baba, and Lenny Rush as "Tiny" Tim Cratchit.

FX's A Christmas Carol is an original take on Charles Dickens' iconic ghost story by Steven Knight. The FX Original Movie is a spine-tingling immersion into Ebenezer Scrooge's dark night of the soul.

Worth noting: previous reports indicated that this would be a three-part limited series, but as you can see, FX's official description refers to it as an original movie, so there's been some confusion about how it will be doled out to audiences. We have confirmed with FX that this is indeed a movie and that it "will air in its entirety on one night."

A Christmas Carol premieres on FX on December 19, 2019.