Beetlejuice Returning to Theaters for 35th Anniversary

Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Say his name three times, and Beetlejuice just might be brought back to theaters. Dolby on Wednesday announced that Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice — the 1988 comedy classic starring Michael Keaton as the titular bio-exorcist and Ghost With the Most — is returning to Dolby Cinemas for one night only in celebration of the film’s 35th anniversary. For the first time ever, moviegoers will experience Beetlejuice with the immersive sound of Dolby Atmos and the spine-chilling, ultra-vivid visuals of Dolby Vision at Beetlejuice 35th Anniversary screenings on Wednesday, October 18th. 

Tickets are now available for pre-order, with showtimes for the one-night-only screenings scheduled for 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on October 18th. Dolby also debuted an exclusive poster, which you can see below.

In Beetlejuice, the recently-deceased Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) attempt to haunt the pretentious humans who have moved into their Connecticut home: Charles (Jeffrey Jones) and Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara), and the self-described “strange and unusual” Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder). The Maitlands consult the troublemaking freelance “bio-exorcist” Betelgeuse (Keaton), a sleazy, pinstripe suit-clad Grade-6 malevolent spirit who plots to wed Lydia and wreak havoc on the mortal world.

Beetlejuice grossed nearly $75 million worldwide against a budget of $15 million, and its success spurred Warner Bros. to greenlight Burton’s 1989 Batman — also starring Keaton as the Dark Knight.

“The things that interest me the most are the things that potentially won’t work,” Burton said in a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone. “On Beetlejuice,I could tell every day what was gonna work and what wasn’t. And thatwas very invigorating. Especially when you’re doing something thisextreme. A lot of people have ragged on the story of Beetlejuice,but when I read it, I thought, ‘Wow! This is sort of interesting. It’svery random. It doesn’t follow what I would consider the Spielberg storystructure.’ I guess I have to watch it more, because I’m intrigued bythings that are perverse. Like, I was intrigued that there was nostory.”

A Beetlejuice sequel starring Keaton and Ryder, alongside Burton’s Wednesday star Jenna Ortega, is scheduled for release on September 6th, 2024, from Warner Bros. Burton also returned to direct the long-awaited sequel, written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Wednesday) from a story by Seth Grahame-Smith (Burton’s Dark Shadows).