Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is coming to theaters this September, and a resurfaced interview has really hammered home how much darker Tim Burton's original movie could have been.
The 1988 horror comedy had its share of macabre moments, but it was mostly played for laughs. However, the first draft of the script was going to lean much more into the horror element, with Michael Keaton's Ghost With the Most depicted as a murderous demon rather than an obnoxious, but not overly wicked spirit.
The ending was also going to be a major downer!
Beetlejuice concludes with Winona Ryder's character, Lydia Deetz, arriving home after getting a good grade in school and being rewarded with a fun dance number courtesy of Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) Maitland.
“Our first ending was Lydia — she died in a fire and was able to join Barbara and Adam in the afterlife,” co-writer Larry Wilson told Yahoo!. “A couple of people said to us, ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea? Is that really the message you want to be sending to the teenagers of the world? Die in a fire?’ So, yeah, it probably was darker.”
Just a little! Wilson also revealed that a couple of different titles were considered, including "House Ghost" and "Scared Sheetless."
“The title that I remember being suggested, pretty much before the release, was House Ghost. I bet it was David Geffen who said no to that, and a big firm no. There were marketing people within Warner Bros. who thought no one would know what ‘Beetlejuice’ was, but they’d know what a house ghost was. Thank God [they went with Beetlejuice]. I would not like to be here talking about House Ghost the movie.”
You can check out some recent set videos and the official poster for Beetlejuice 2 below.
Keaton spoke about returning as the Ghost With the Most in a recent interview with Empire.
"Beetlejuice is the most f--kin’ fun you can have working. It’s so fun, it’s so great. And you know what it is? We’re doing it exactly like we did the first movie," he says. "There’s a woman in the great waiting room for the afterlife literally with a fishing line – I want people to know this because I love it – tugging on the tail of a cat to make it move."
"[Burton] and I were talking about it years and years ago, never telling anybody," he continued. "I said, ‘if it happens, first of all, we’ve both said we’re doing it many times. We both agreed, if it happens, it has to be done as close to the way we made it the first time. Making stuff up, making stuff happen, improvising and riffing, but literally handmade stuff like people creating things with their hands and building something. F--kin’ great. It’s the most fun I’ve had working on a movie in I can’t tell you how long."
Catherine O'Hara is also set to reprise her role as Lydia's mother, Delia Deetz. Other new cast members include Monica Bellucci as Betelgeuse's wife, Willem Dafoe as an afterlife cop, and Justin Theroux in an undisclosed role.
Wednesday creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar penned the script.
Beetlejuice 2 is set to release in theaters on Sept. 6, 2024.