Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Almost Got a Direct Streaming Release

Tim Burton managed to get a theatrical release, provided he accepted a budget of less than $100 million.

While Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has just reached the $264 million in revenue worldwideits producers Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy confide in the making of it to the New York Times. Newly hired at Warner Bros. Discovery (they arrived under the direction of David Zaslav, in 2022), at a time when several of the studio's productions were abandoned during creation (Batgirl, Road Runner and Coyote…), or were released in parallel in theaters and streaming, the duo reveals that there was at one time talk of releasing this sequel, still directed by Tim Burton directly on their platform, Max.

“This strategy would never have worked for Tim, Abdy explains straight away, for whom Beetlejuice 2 represents the first production from A to Z at Warner. We are talking about a visionary artist, whose films demand to be seen on the big screen.”

How Wednesday's Series Brought Beetlejuice 2 Back to Life

Burton has long sought to make a sequel to his original 1986 comedy, with more or less crazy pitches, but always involved actors: Michael Keaton or Winona Ryder have constantly repeated that they would love to return in Beetlejuice 2and Geena Davis was very sad to learn that she would not be able to participate in this new adventure.

In the early 2020s, when Beetlejuice 2 began to take shape, Tim Burton was coming off a flop (Dumbo earned $350 million worldwide, including only $114 million in the United States, for an official budget of $170 million, not including his advertising at Disney). To appease his future financiers, the director accepted a significant budget cut, withdrawing around fifty million from the $147 million initially agreed – a significant sum due in particular to the high salaries of his stars. Then he returned to success at Netflix, thanks to the phenomenon Wednesdaya series that quickly found its audience.

THE New York Times specifies, about this turning point in his career:

“De Luca and Abdy told Burton that he could make this sequel exclusively for the cinema on the condition that its budget did not exceed 100 million dollars.”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was then given the green light by Warner Bros. for $99 million, and the assurance that the cast chosen by Burton (Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O'Hara…) would accept a lower fee than expected, but bonuses on its box office receipts. Mike Simpson, long-time agent of the director of Edward Scissorhands, helped convince the entire team to sign, (almost) sure of the future success of Beetlejuice 2.

“Well, after that, for two months, we thought every day that the film was dead,” he comments today, while saluting Abdy and De Luca for their commitment: “They showed they had balls, which is all the more remarkable coming from two executive producers who had just arrived in the studio.”

They then admit that the good scores of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice From its American start, everyone was reassured:

“Yes, there were dances of joy in the corridors, says De Luca, amused. You know, there's nothing better for morale than success.”

Here is the trailer for Beetlejuice Beetlejuicecurrently in theaters: