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Beetlejuice is a 1988 American fantasy horror comedy film directed by Tim Burton from a screenplay by Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren based on a story by McDowell and Larry Wilson. The film stars Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara, Winona Ryder, and Michael Keaton as the title character. The first installment of the Beetlejuice franchise, the plot revolves around a recently deceased couple. As ghosts, they are not allowed to leave their house. They contact Betelgeuse, a charismatic "bio-exorcist" from the Netherworld, to scare the home's new inhabitants away. Beetlejuice was released in the United States on March 30, 1988, by Warner Bros. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $74.7 million on a $15 million budget. It won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and three Saturn Awards: Best Horror Film, Best Makeup, and Best Supporting Actress for Sylvia Sidney. The film's success spawned an animated television series, video games, and a 2018 stage musical. A sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, is scheduled for theatrical release on September 6, 2024. Plot In Winter River, Connecticut, married couple Barbara and Adam Maitland decide to spend their vacation decorating their idyllic country home. As they are driving home from a trip to town, Barbara swerves to avoid a dog, and the car crashes through the side of a covered bridge and plunges into the river. After returning home, she and Adam notice they now lack reflections. When Adam attempts to leave the house, he ends up in a strange and otherworldly desert-like landscape populated by enormous "sandworms." The encounter lasts only a few seconds for him, but after Barbara rescues him, she says he was gone for two hours. They then find a Handbook for the Recently Deceased, which leads them to realize they drowned in the river and have become ghosts. The house is sold, and the new owners, the Deetz family, arrive from New York City. Charles Deetz is a former real estate developer; his second wife, Delia, is a sculptor and conceptual artist; and his teenage goth daughter, Lydia, from his first marriage, is an aspiring photographer. Under the guidance of interior designer Otho, the family transforms the house into a new-wave work of postmodern art. Consulting the Handbook, the Maitlands travel to an otherworldly waiting room populated by other distressed souls, where they discover the afterlife is structured according to a complex bureaucracy involving vouchers and caseworkers. The Maitlands' caseworker, Juno, tells them they must remain in the house for the next 125 years on pain of a dire fate. If they want the Deetzes out of the house, it is up to the Maitlands to scare them away. Adam and Barbara are invisible to Charles and Delia, but Lydia is able to see them; she attributes her paranormal intuition to her "strange and unusual" nature. Against Juno's advice, the Maitlands contact the miscreant Betelgeuse, Juno's former assistant and a now-freelance "bio-exorcist", to scare the Deetzes away. Betelgeuse quickly offends the Maitlands with his crude and morbid demeanor. They reconsider hiring him, but they are too late to stop him from wreaking havoc on the Deetzes. The small town's charm and the supernatural events inspire Charles to pitch his boss, Maxie Dean, on transforming the town into a tourist hot spot, but Maxie wants proof of the ghosts. Using the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, Otho conducts what he thinks is a séance and summons Adam and Barbara, using their wedding clothes, but they begin to age and decay, as Otho unwittingly performed an exorcism instead. Horrified, Lydia summons Betelgeuse for help, but he will only help her if she marries him; marrying a human would enable Betelgeuse to freely cause chaos in the mortal world. Betelgeuse saves the Maitlands, disposes of Maxie, Maxie's wife in a high striker game, and Otho by changing his clothes to a leisure suit outfit, then prepares a wedding before a ghastly minister. The Maitlands intervene before the ceremony is completed, and Barbara rides a sandworm through the house, which devours Betelgeuse. The Deetzes and Maitlands agree to live in harmony within the house. Barbara and Adam form a stronger bond with Lydia, and she persuades them to occasionally unleash their ghostly powers, including spirit possession. Betelgeuse is stuck in the afterlife waiting room. He steals a number ticket from a witch doctor, who shrinks his head in return. Cast Production Writing After the financial success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Burton became a "bankable" director and began working on a script for Batman with Sam Hamm. While Warner Bros. was willing to pay for the script's development, it was less willing to green-light Batman. Burton had become disheartened by the lack of imagination and originality in the scripts he had been sent, particularly Hot to Trot. Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson formed a partnership (Pecos Productions) with entertainment attorney Michael Bender, and Beetlejuice was their first original project. After developing the story, McDowell and Wilson decided they would write the first draft of the screenplay together, while Wilson would only take 'Story By' credit, as well as his 'Producer' credit. Burton had gotten to know and worked with McDowell and Wilson (who co-wrote the script for "The Jar", an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that Burton directed). Burton read their first draft of Beetlejuice, liked it but had other projects that kept him from becoming involved at that time. The original script is far less comedic and much darker; the Maitlands' car crash is depicted graphically, with Barbara's arm crushed and the couple screaming for help as they slowly drown. A reference to this remains: Barbara remarks that her arm feels frozen upon returning home as a ghost. Instead of possessing the Deetzes and forcing them to dance during dinner, the Maitlands cause a vine-patterned carpet to come to life and attack them by tangling them to their chairs. The character of Betelgeuse—envisioned in the first draft as a winged demon who takes on the form of a short Middle Eastern man—is also intent on killing the Deetzes rather than scaring them and wants sex from Lydia instead of marriage. In this version of the script, Betelgeuse need only be exhumed from his grave to be summoned, after which he is free to wreak havoc; he cannot be summoned or controlled by saying his name three times and wanders the world freely, appearing to torment different characters in different manifestations. In another version of the script, the film concludes with the Maitlands, Deetzes, and Otho conducting an exorcism ritual that destroys Betelgeuse and the Maitlands transforming into miniature versions of themselves and moving into Adam's model of their home, which they refurbish to look like their house before the Deetzes moved in. Co-author and producer Larry Wilson has talked about the reaction to the firs.... Discover the Janet Bettle popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Janet Bettle books.