I don't know what the official count is but I'm guessing Christmas is top of the list of holidays movies have been made about. Some are naught, some are nice, but all tend to have some feel-good, humanist message attached to them. Even Bad Santa does, in its own R-rated way. It's hard to believe there was ever a time when Christmas had fallen out of favor but there was, until author Charles Dickens' 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol, showed how the holiday could represent the best of what humanity had to offer. How Dickens came up with the classic story is about to be told in a new biopic with the red-hot Dan Stevens playing the Victorian-era writer.
THR reports Stevens will play Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas, with screen legend Christopher Plummer on board to play the film's "Scrooge" character. Jonathan Pryce also has a role as Dickens' father. The script was adapted by Susan Coyne (Mozart in the Jungle) based on the book by Les Standiford that centers on the six weeks when Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. He had been inspired to write due to his conflicting feelings with his father and what he later witnessed of children in poverty.
Add this to Stevens' increasingly heavy workload. He recently signed on for Gareth Evans' action flick, Apostle, and will star in FX series, Legion.
