Disney Says "Bah Humbug" To Apple, Plans Their Own 'Christmas Carol' Musical

Let the Christmas Carol musical wars begin! Earlier this month, word broke that Apple was dishing out a ton of cash for a new A Christmas Carol musical starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. Not to be outdone, Disney has decided to develop their own A Christmas Carol musical, which is called Marley, and will retell the Charles Dickens classic through the eyes of Ebenezer Scrooge's ghostly former business partner, Jacob Marley.

How many more musical versions of A Christmas Carol do we as a society need? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know we're getting at least two more. One is from Apple, and features Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. And now, THR says Disney is developing a Christmas Carol musical of their own. Beauty and the Beast director Bill Condon will helm the movie, titled Marley. Stephen Schwartz, the composer-songwriter who co-wrote songs for Disney's Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as the Broadway hit Wicked, will write the music.

In case you've somehow never heard the story of A Christmas Carol, Jacob Marley is the dead business partner of main character Ebenezer Scrooge. At the start of the story, Marley's ghost visits Scrooge and warns him that he's doomed to walk the Earth in chains for being such a greedy jerk, and Scrooge will face a similar fate if he doesn't change his ways. Scrooge is then visited by three ghosts who show him his past, present, and future. It all ends happily with Scrooge forcing a street urchin to go buy a giant goose.

This musical will retell the story through Marley's dead eyes, which is interesting, since Marley vanishes from the bulk of the story after his introduction. It's safe to assume this version of the story changes that and keeps the ghost around for the rest of the action.

It's worth noting that Disney already has a pretty great musical version of A Christmas Carol to its name – The Muppet Christmas Carol. THR says this latest version is already in advance stages, with a script (written by Condon) ready to go. Now it's only a matter of time before Netflix announces a musical Christmas Carol of their own, I guess. And then Hulu. Then Amazon. And then, uh, Crackle, I guess? Is that still a thing?