{"id":31965,"date":"2021-02-10T18:10:11","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T01:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=31965"},"modified":"2021-02-10T18:10:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T01:10:11","slug":"spirited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/spirited\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple to Produce Spirited, A Musical Remake of A Christmas Carol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple TV+ will soon produce Spirited<\/em>, a musical retelling of Charles Dicken\u2019s A Christmas<\/a> Carol,<\/em>\u00a0according to Collider<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The big money project ropes in the talents of Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell to star in the flick. Reynolds will be playing the \u201cEbenezer Scrooge-like\u201d lead.<\/p>\n

An additional report from Slash Film<\/a><\/strong> says that Oscar Winner Octavia Spencer is in talks to join the cast. She will appear as a co-worker of Scrooge who helps the Ghost of Christmas<\/a> Present (Ferrell, evidently) teach kindness. Slash Film calls Spencer\u2019s role the \u201cBob Cratchit\u201d character of this adaptation.<\/p>\n

\"Spirited<\/p>\n

According to several sources the musical take on A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> was considered a \u201chot project\u201d. Paramount and Warner Bros both pursued the project.<\/p>\n

Sean Anders and John Morris will be directing the script they have produced. There is no word yet on who will be behind the musical creation.<\/p>\n

~ A Brief Film History of A Christmas Carol ~<\/h3>\n

A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> has had two noteworthy magical musical adaptations: 1970s Scrooge<\/em>, which starred Albert Finney in the lead, and the much beloved Muppet Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> which was released in 1992.<\/p>\n

The Muppet version has easily risen to cult\/classic perennial holiday favorite among Christmas<\/a> enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

Fans are admittedly cautious of any new production of the Christmas<\/a> tale.<\/p>\n

In the past few years the public has endured a profane BBC\/FX television production<\/a> by Steven Knight and a flat and dark animated feature that did not even have characters who spoke.<\/p>\n

There is, perhaps, no other story that has been told and re-told like Dicken\u2019s A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In 1901 it was presented as one of the first movies ever made in a silent film production called Marley\u2019s Ghost<\/em>. It was remade as Scrooge<\/em> in 1913 with Sir Seymour Hicks starring.<\/p>\n

Hicks famously starred in a remade Scrooge<\/em>, this time with sound, in 1935 in a version that still sees a lot of replay on video and television.<\/p>\n

Reginald Owen was Scrooge in a 1938 version of A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> that featured Gene and Kathleen Lockhart at the Cratchits.<\/p>\n

In 1951, a more congenial Scrooge played by Alistair Sim in A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> was produced and it too remains a fan favorite.<\/p>\n

Finney\u2019s Scrooge<\/em> came along in 1970, followed by a made-for-TV version of A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> that featured American George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge.<\/p>\n

Bill Murray then famously took on the role of Frank Cross, the Scrooge-like television executive in a sour comedy adaptation titled Scrooged<\/em> that has seen more life in reruns than when released to the big screen.<\/p>\n

The Muppets followed in the early 1990s with their child and family friendly musical version with Michael Caine. Patrick Stewart then brought his forced Scrooge in 1999, which was driven by Stewart\u2019s one-man stage version of the story.<\/p>\n

A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> has been adapted hundreds of times for the stage, for radio<\/a> and for animated specials such as Mister Magoo\u2019s Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em>, The Stingiest Man in Town<\/em>, Mickey\u2019s Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> and the hollow Disney 2009 computer animated A Christmas<\/a> Carol<\/em> that saw Jim Carrey star in several roles.<\/p>\n

~ Comedians Struggle with Dickens ~<\/h3>\n

The failures of comedians, musical and comedic takes on Dicken\u2019s story makes new productions suspect long before they become public viewing.<\/p>\n

Throwing money at the production \u2013 2009\u2019s Disney\/Robert Zemeckis version is a good example \u2013 does little to produce a meaningful re-telling.<\/p>\n

This newest adaptation is from the creators of Daddy\u2019s Home<\/em><\/a>, another Will Ferrell comedy that grossed better than $250 million at the box office. It sports a nasty 30% score at Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus opinion that the film suffered from \u201ca dearth of genuinely funny ideas\u201d. (The ratings for the follow-up film are even worse).<\/p>\n

The new Christmas<\/a> Carol film, to be titled Spirited<\/em>, will reportedly pay both Reynolds and Ferrell $30 million each.<\/p>\n

Word on the street is that Apple is sparing no expense on production.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

There is no anticipated release date at this time and production on the film has not yet started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple TV+ will soon produce Spirited, a musical retelling of Charles Dicken\u2019s A Christmas Carol,\u00a0according to Collider. The big money project ropes in the talents of Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell to star in the flick. Reynolds will be playing the \u201cEbenezer Scrooge-like\u201d lead. An additional report from Slash Film says that Oscar Winner Octavia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":28,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,2,99],"tags":[48,866,867,746,865,747],"class_list":["post-31965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-movies","category-christmas-news","category-christmas-television","tag-a-christmas-carol","tag-apple-tv","tag-octavia-spencer","tag-ryan-reynolds","tag-spirited","tag-will-ferrell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}