It’s taken a whole 36 years since the original hit cinemas, but we finally have a Beetlejuice sequel!
If it’s been a little while since you’ve seen it, the original Beetlejuice followed the story of just-deceased couple Barbara and Adam Maitland (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin). They haunt the house they lived in when they died, which the quite awful Delia and Charles Deetz (Catherine O’Hara and Jeffrey Jones), along with their actually-quite-nice goth teen daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder), buy. Horrified by the new occupants, as well as the fact they have to haunt the house for 125 years, the Maitlands ignore all spiritual advice and call on Michael Keaton’s eccentric Beetlejuice (and actually spelled Betelgeuse) to drive them out, as the only way to get rid of the Deetzs is to scare them out.
The sequel – aptly called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, sees Michael, Winona and Catherine reprising their roles. It follows the Deetz family returning to their home following the death of Charles. However, Lydia’s teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) discovers something supernatural in the attic that opens up a portal to the afterlife. Then, of course, chaos quickly ensues.
To celebrate the release of the Beetlejuice sequel, here are a few things you might not know about the original. Let’s get you all caught up so you’re ready to check out the sequel!
Things you might not know about Beetlejuice
- The name “Betelgeuse” comes from the star Betelguese in the Orion constellation.
- The idea for the 1988 movie came after the success of Poltergeist. However, director Tim Burton wanted to flip the idea of a traditional supernatural movie. In his film, the alive people in the house are the awful ones, rather than the ghosts.
- Anyone who’s seen the movie knows it’s a little offbeat. It took a marathon effort to sign the main cast, most of whom didn’t quite get it during their first read of the script. The one who signed up straightaway? Geena Davis.
- Catherine met her husband on the set of Beetlejuice! She and production designer Bo Welch connected while filming, married in 1992 and have been together ever since. Plus, they have two kids.
- Catherine wasn’t even supposed to be in Beetlejuice – she replaced Anjelica Huston, who had to drop out due to illness. But she’d go on to play Morticia Addams in The Addams Family films!
- The movie studio originally wanted the title of the film to be the slightly-less-imaginative House Ghosts. This led to director Tim joking that they might as well name it Scared Sheetless. He was mortified when the studio actually considered it!
- Despite the fact he plays the title character, Michael has less than 15 minutes of screen time. He also improvised about 90 percent of his dialogue.
- This movie is one of Michael’s favourites of his own work. However, Alec hates it and thinks his individual performance wasn’t good.
- One of the film’s most iconic scenes features the song Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) when the Deetzs are hosting a dinner party. Tim thought the scene and the song was all wrong, and he thought it wasn’t very funny. But, of course, he was wrong – test audiences loved it.
- Beetlejuice was the first movie that Netflix, when it was still sending out DVDs to customers, sent to its subscribers in 1998.
- While it’s hard to imagine anyone but Michael in the title role, Tim actually had another actor in mind – Sammy Davis Jr.
- Despite a very modest budget of $15 million, Beetlejuice ended up making more than $70 million in the US alone. It became the 10th highest-grossing film of 1988.
- The sequel’s been in development, then shelved, then developed, then shelved since 1990.
- Batman star Michael helped to design the look for Betelgeuse, including the mould on his face, the eccentric clothes that feature items from almost every time period and the hair that, in Michael’s words, “looks like I’ve stuck my finger in an electrical socket”.
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