Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
a review by Evan Landon
In spite of Hollywood attempting to assassinate every semblance of my childhood, this time they incorporate the biggest slayer of children's dreams, Tim Burton, to take a giant shit on the forehead of one of his greatest creations: Beetlejuice. Was it really his to begin with though?
After working together on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents entitled “The Jar”, Larry Wilson and popular novelist Michael McDowell wrote a first draft of what would be known as Beetlejuice and showed it to Tim Burton who liked it, but was already involved in other projects. The first draft was much darker than the more comedic version that would be released to the audience, so after Universal Studios passed on it, The Geffen Film Company offered $1 million and had it rewritten by Warren Skaaren with a brighter tone. It turned out so well (despite McDowell's objections to his script rewrites) that Burton asked Skaaren to work on his Batman screenplay after original writer Sam Hamm was unable to complete it because of hs contract.
A lot of characters were not able to reprise their roles from the first film either due to a few reasons: Sylvia Sidney, Robert Goulet, and Dick Cavett had all passed away, as well as Glenn Shadix who suffered a strange and questionable fate (look that one up). I am certain we all know about Jeffrey Jones's deplorable actions, leading to his character wandering around the afterlife as just a pair of legs because he got bitten which sounds ludicrous in half by a shark. The most notable absences has got to be Alec Bladwin and Geena Davis, who portrayed the main characters in the first film, for some reason that is never explained. They missed out on that plotpoint.
I don't know how else to put this, but this movie should never had been made. We live in a world of fucking remakes and shit. This one was actually going to be called “Beetlejuice Goes To Hawaii”, but someone scratched that interesting, farcical idea for this obvious, unnecessary cash grab.
No shots at Michael Keaton because who knows what that man has been through his entire life, but when he will sit down to talk about it, you might listen. He was ecstatic about taking this role though, so I will be kind. At least he and everyone else is having fun. Does that mean it was a success?
The answer is a resounding YES: Beetlejuice (twice) did extremely well at the box office scoring $422.2 million against a $100 million budget. So everyone can throw that in my face someday, but I stand by the fact that it had very little to offer except a paycheck for everyone ready to resurrect an undead fanbase.
At least Jenna Ortega is in it, so that is a plus. There are worse things to watch.
2.5 out of 5