Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Nearly Went Straight to Streaming: "The Movie Almost Died"

Banishing Beetlejuice 2 to Max was "never going to work" for director Tim Burton.

By Cameron Bonomolo

Michael Keaton's Ghost with the Most almost went straight to Max. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton's long-awaited sequel to his 1988 supernatural comedy, has made an eye-popping $264 million at the global box office since opening in theaters on Sept. 6th. The Warner Bros. release — which also stars Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Willem Dafoe, and Jenna Ortega — possessed the No. 1 spot two weeks in a row, winning the second biggest September opening (behind 2017's R-rated It) with $111 million domestically and the second-best second weekend for the month (about $51 million, behind It's $60.1 million).

It's a much-needed hit for Warner Bros. after a string of flops over the summer with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ($172 million), The Watchers ($33 million), and Horizon: An America Saga – Chapter 1 ($35.5 million). According to The New York Times, the studio's previous regime considered sending Beetlejuice 2 straight to streaming before the sequel — which underwent various rounds of development since the 1990s — was officially greenlit by Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, who were installed to that position in 2022.

"That was never going to work for Tim," Abdy said of a streaming-only release. "You're talking about a visionary artist whose films demand to be seen on a big screen."

Burton reportedly butted heads with the studio over costs and distribution as Warner Bros. was spooked by the prospect of spending a projected $147 million on a sequel to a 36-year-old film, with a director who hadn't had a hit since Disney's live-action Alice in Wonderland in 2010. Ultimately, Warner Bros. agreed to a major theatrical release if the budget was under $100 million; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice cost $99 million to produce, according to The New York Times.

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Burton — along with Keaton, Ryder, O'Hara, and Ortega — agreed to take less upfront in exchange for a larger piece of the back end, with tax incentives helping bring the budget to just under the $100 million mark. Burton's agent, Mike Simpson, told The Times that before shooting, "Two months went by where every day the movie almost died."

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is putting more life in the Afterlife with a box office that will pass the $250 million mark through Sunday, and will climb past $300 million worldwide through the Halloween season.

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