Teaser for ‘Beetlejuice’ on Broadway Debuts

Whether it be Evil Dead, Re-Animator, or Carrie, multiple horror films have surprisingly been turned into musicals, with Beetlejuice being the next iconic horror movie to get the theatrical treatment. A new teaser for the Broadway production has debuted, which you can see above, before checking out the musical when it officially opens on April 25th.

Based on Tim Burton’s 1988 classic, the Beetlejuice musical will feel quite familiar to devout fans, as it will depict the major plot points of a family moving into the home of a couple who had died and now haunt their former home. The new residents include Lydia Deetz, a girl obsessed with death, who develops a connection with the ghosts of the former owners, all while the ghosts seek the assistance of Beetlejuice to terrify the new homeowners away from the domicile.

The major tweak to this musical is that the narrative will revolve around Lydia as opposed to the ghosts haunting the home.

“Refocusing the story on Lydia’s emotional journey, Lydia’s relationship to Beetlejuice — who were [both] more like secondary characters in the film — felt like a great way in,” director Alex Timbers previously shared with Entertainment Weekly. “Beetlejuice and Lydia are both trickster figures, in a way. Certainly Beetlejuice is, but musical theater has a great history of con men as characters when you think about Bialystock and Bloom or Harold Hill in The Music Man, so it felt to me that the DNA of those two characters felt like great musical theater protagonists in the way they work off each other.”

Alex Brightman will be playing Beetlejuice in the musical, with Timbers detailing the performer’s energetic performance allowing him to make the character his own, having previously been defined on film by Michael Keaton.

“He’s one of those characters in film that you can imagine breaking the fourth wall, and I think in theater, you want these characters that vibrate with life and can kick over the footlights and land in your lap. That’s Beetlejuice,” Timbers noted. “He can directly address the audience. He can be an unreliable narrator. He can be a Loki figure, you know? He can be a god of chaos, and that’s really exciting.”

While the musical will likely hold over devout fans for now, many have been clamoring to get an official sequel, with various reports emerging over the years that both imply and refute that idea ever coming to fruition.

Check out Beetlejuice: The Musical The Musical The Musical when it opens for previews in March and officially on April 25th.

Does this teaser have you excited for the project? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!