Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. News

Benedict Cumberbatch will get his Grinch on in a remake of the Dr. Seuss classic

By

benedict cumberbatch how the grinch stole christmas
JStone / Shutterstock
Benedict Cumberbatch is everywhere you look these days. The British actor is not only playing the lead role in Marvel Studios’ upcoming Doctor Strange, but is also prepping a return as the star of BBC’s Sherlock series.

And now he’s the subject of yet another high-profile casting announcement.

Recommended Videos

Universal Pictures has revealed that Cumberbatch will voice the titular Christmas-hating villain in an upcoming, animated remake of the Dr. Seuss story How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Related

The studio made the announcement during its presentation at this week’s CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, with the CEO of Illumination Entertainment — the animation studio that has a partnership with Universal — delivering the news about the project and its star.

The new version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas will feature the directing duo of Pete Candeland, who directed several music videos for the band Gorillaz and also served in the animation department for 1995’s Balto and 1997’s Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, and Yarrow Cheney, the co-director of Universal’s upcoming animated feature The Secret Life of Pets. The film, which is currently scheduled to hit theaters in 2017, is expected to be a reimagined adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ beloved story that was first published in 1957.

Related: Stream the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Amazon Video

The role won’t be the first prominent voice-acting performance for Cumberbatch, who recently provided the voice (and some motion-capture performance) for the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit trilogy of live-action films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy saga.

While the upcoming How the Grinch Stole Christmas  will certainly benefit from the involvement of Cumberbatch, one of the most acclaimed actors — and voices — in Hollywood right now, it will have to contend with the legacy of the original, animated feature based on the classic story of a villain who learns to appreciate Christmas only after attempting to ruin it for the townspeople of a nearby village.

The animated television movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas first aired in 1966 and featured the signature voice of monster-movie star Boris Karloff as both the film’s narrator and the voice of The Grinch (with Thurl Ravenscroft taking over voice duties for the songs). Directed by Oscar-winning animator Chuck Jones, the film is widely regarded as one of greatest holiday movies ever made.

The announcement of the new version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas also comes 16 years after Jim Carrey played The Grinch in a live-action adaptation of the story released in 2000. Although critically panned, the film went on to earn $285.7 million in U.S. theaters, making it the second-highest grossing Christmas movie of all time (after Home Alone).

How the Grinch Stole Christmas is scheduled to hit theaters November 10, 2017.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Rick Marshall
Rick Marshall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
The best animated movies on Netflix right now
A cat points a bat at another cat in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

While Nimona has been the big Netflix original animated film of the summer, it's far from the only addition to the lineup. Netflix is making sure that animation fans are well served in August with the first two Despicable Me movies, Bee Movie, and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. However, Netflix's biggest recent addition is one of 2022's biggest animated hits: DreamWorks' Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Netflix's deals with Sony Pictures Animation, DreamWorks Animation, and Universal Pictures have given it a powerhouse library of animated films. And that's before we even get into Netflix's impressive originals like The Sea Beast. To help you keep track of what's new and what you can stream right now, we've updated our list of the best animated movies on Netflix.

Read more
From Barbarella to Howard the Duck: the 7 cheesiest sci-fi movies ever
Howard the Duck in "Howard the Duck."

The science-fiction genre has a vast smorgasbord of cheesy films stretching way back to the early days of cinema. Such pictures are known for their weird stories, unrealistic dialogue, low-budget productions, and exaggerated acting.

While many of these films have been panned by critics and audiences alike, some of them have garnered success for being "so bad, they're good." Whether or not they have been held up by a dedicated fan base, these seven movies stand out as the cream of the cheesy sci-fi crop.
Flash Gordon (1980)

Read more
10 best Batman stories ever, ranked
Batman Year One cover

Bounding from rooftop to rooftop, the Dark Knight never misses his mark. He operates like a well-oiled machine tracking bad guys, beating them to a bloody pulp, and throwing them in the slammer - or Arkham Asylum should they be anyone of Gotham's notable supervillains. As the brainchild of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, an artist and writer duo, Batman has been pounding the pavement of Gotham ever since his debut in Detective Comics in 1939. He's undergone a number of changes since his original conception ultimately becoming the brooding powerhouse we know today.

Most understand the basic tenants of Batman these days. His parents were murdered before his young eyes leading him down this path of personal vindication and pursuit of justice. Batman, in most iterations, never resorts to killing -- the one crime that separates his outlaw vigilante operations from the real criminals. Of course, it wasn't always that way. In Batman's earliest days, he had no qualms about ending the lives of baddies on the streets. Even now, some stories and films like Tim Burton's gothic take on the character depict him looking on with cold and uncaring glares as criminals meet their end. Regardless, Batman is mostly a well-established hero simply seeking justice and there are countless stories of the Caped Crusader. Let's take a look at the best among them.
10. Hush

Read more