‘A Christmas Carol’ Poster and Train Tour

Published by Jeff Leins on: May 13th, 2009

Disney has released the official poster for A Christmas Carol, the latest performance-capture animated film from Robert Zemeckis (The Polar Express, Beowulf).  In the re-envisioning of the classic Dickens tale, Jim Carrey plays seven roles, including Ebeneezer Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and, and Future.  Gary Oldman plays his faithful clerk (Bob Cratchit) and Colin Firth is his nephew (Fred).

To the left is the official poster for the film (click to enlarge), which doesn’t open until November 6.  It has a presence at the Cannes Film Festival already underway in France and a unique publicity stunt the rest of the year to build curiosity.

On May 22, the studio is launching a 40-city train tour across the United States to promote the film starting in Los Angeles and ending at Grand Central Station in New York City.  Amtrak is pulling a six-car passenger train redone as a gallery display of the development and designs of the film.  Admission is free to anyone interested in seeing clips of the film, artwork, props, and artifacts from the Charles Dickens Museum of London.

For more details and a map of the tour’s locations as it tracks across the country, go to the official train tour website.  Christmas will be here earlier than you thought.

Is it just me, or shouldn’t this idea have been used for… oh, I don’t know, one of the other Zemeckis films.  I’m just going to throw this out there and see what you think, but isn’t The Polar Express entirely about a train and its glass-eyed conductor?  It seems creative and all, but I think I might wait until Zemeckis makes a new motion-capture movie and I can go check out the new horse-drawn carriage exhibit.  Because what better way to showcase the state-of-the art techniques in the film than with a modern system like… a train?