Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceis doing astonishingly well at the box office. Some of its success undoubtedly comes from the modern blockbuster impact of Jenna Ortega, but it’s still raking in millions off the enduring cult classic status of its predecessor. While those two explanations would be enough to sell most movies,Beetlejuice Beetlejuicealso has the benefit of dropping into a relatively safe environment. There aren’t manycomedymovies coming to theaters these days, and that emptiness gave Betelgeuse a place to play.
Tim Burton’s latest is just one of many examples ofHollywood’s current favorite trend: the legacy sequel. Rather than simply remaking all the marketable names from the 1980s and 90s, many studios offer long-awaited follow-ups with the surviving cast in tow. As a gimmick, it’s not the worst way to capitalize on the consistent risk aversion of major studios.Beetlejuice Beetlejuicealso isn’t the most gratuitous sequel of the bunch. Some films can live in their nostalgia and deliver something moderately interesting.
Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Seth Graham-Smith
Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, and Jenna Ortega
Box-Office (as of writing)
$153.4 Million
After decades of scrapped production attempts,Beetlejuice Beetlejuicefinally came to the screen, and it’s doing extremely well. It made its money back and more with a $111 million opening weekend. It’s currently the second-biggest opening for a movie released in September. That level of success also eclipses all but one of Tim Burton’s other films, leaving onlyAlice in Wonderlandat the top. It’s an impressive box-office take for the sequel to a comparatively modest original outing. Adjusting for inflation,Beetlejuice Beetlejuicemade about half of the first film’s total earnings in its opening weekend.
ThenewBeetlejuicehas the impactof the original film, its continued merchandising success via Spirit Halloween, the long wait between entries, and the star power of Jenna Ortega pushing it to victory. Ortega appears to be the not-so-secret weapon. Burton was quite candid in stating that his experience onWednesdaywith Ortega pushed him to finally finish the sequel. Her personal celebrity, largely sourced throughWednesday’s social media pull with teens, is enough to get those who weren’t around for the original into the theater. Hollywood will learn the wrong lesson from this, even though the right one is very obvious.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceis a bizarre comedy
Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceis the closest Hollywood has gotten to a live-actionLooney Tunesmovie in years. It really raises some tough questions about the fate ofCoyote vs. Acme. The second adventure of Michael Keaton’s iconic trickster demon has almost none of the elements that make a movie work in context. Characters appear and disappear without impact. Conflict leaps out of closets only to be shoved back inside a second later. It’s a universe in which nothing matters for long. By the time the credits roll, audiences have to wonder what, if anything, actually happened in the film. These descriptions would usually be damning critiques reserved for only the worst of the straight-to-streaming rejects, but a lot of the messy elements work in context. The film has a focus, but it has nothing to do with the plot.
Comedies don’t come to theaters often
The overwhelming majority of comedy movies are either blends that rely heavily on another genre’s tropes, children’s films, or released straight-to-streaming. Those precious few comedy movies that do reach the multiplex tend to stay in theaters for only a few weeks before they become available at home.Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceis a PG-13 comedywith a few horror elements and enough jokes to keep its audience happy. People enjoy going to the theater for a laugh. In the era of the original film, comedies were more common and more profitable. There are a few exceptions, though they tend to be few and far between.Poor Things, Bottoms, Dream Scenario, Kinds of Kindness, American Fiction, Fly Me To The Moon, and more unique comedy films made it to the theaters over the past year and change.Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceis a bit more of a crowd-pleaserthan the average Lanthimos film, but it’s also a rare studio comedy that enjoys the kind of marketing usually reserved for blockbusters.
People want comedy movies on the big screen.Beetlejuice Beetlejuicesucceeded with a variety of powerful selling points, but it isn’t only profitable because of its title and cast.Big-budget comedies usually packa dozen boring shootouts into their runtime or deliver all of their jokes through the lens of violence.Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceis the long-awaited return of projects that put an impressive budget behind the goal of making people laugh. Like the titular ghost with the most, the idea of studio comedy isn’t as dead as it seems to be.
