Tim Burton has been a constant in the hearts of general audiences thanks to hits like Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christmas. After a shaky 2010s, the 2020s have been much kinder to him with Wednesdayand Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and now the filmmaker’s getting a documentary charting his decades-long career.
Directed by Tara Wood, who previously helmed documentaries for Richard Linklater and Quentin Tarantino, the four-part Tim Burton: Life in the Line series promises never-before-seen footage and artwork from Burton’s past and present works, along with “untold stories of those who know him best.” Interviewees include longtime Burton alums Johnny Depp, Michael Keaton, and Helena Bonham Carter, and more recent additions like Jenna Ortega. As seen in the trailer, the series promises to explore everything, from his early time at Disney to Batman, Dumbo, and Wednesday.
Life in the Line is an independent production, and as such is built on a custom “direct-to-fan” platform that makes it “one of the largest independent streaming launches ever,” according to the press release. This method “gives audiences unprecedented access to Burton’s world — uncut, unfiltered, and overflowing with never-before-seen footage, interviews and artwork.” Wood later told Forbes the docuseries is “a project for the fans [and] artists, the freaks, the dreamers and the misunderstood — the ones who’ve always seen themselves in Tim’s world. It’s a love letter to Tim and to creative freedom.”
If you’re a Burton head and want to watch, Life in the Line drops on Thursday, October 23 for $40, or $24 to rent for five days. There’ll also be a premium version for $75 that includes, according to Deadline, “hours of bonus content.”
For those of us who love the glamor and the glitz of the entertainment industry, September passes by in a train of tulle and sartorial spectacle. Fashion weeks across New York, Paris, London, and Milan take the cake.
Packed front rows and celebrity-studded catwalks keep the internet entranced. From my couch – clad in my hole-ridden sweatpants – I judge couture and ready-to-wear fashion shows from the mega-brands and the sparkling stars who actually attend these exclusive events.
But to me, fashion week is just the punctuation to the summer film festival season. There’s the Tribeca Film Festival and Cannes, Toronto Film Festival, and Venice International Film Festival to name the heaviest hitters. Some films premiere across all these festivals; others are more selective. But each one has its headlines: the drawn-out standing ovations, the celebrity attendees, the future award winners.
Indeed, September marked the Venice Film Festival, one of the most anticipated film events of the year, and spawned some of the most talked about films of the year. The 2024 Venice Film Festival’s pomp and circumstance – arguably the film festival circuit’s glittering crown jewel – transforms the floating city into a playground for the cinematic elite.
Venice has long been the preferred launchpad for Oscar hopefuls and auteur passion projects alike. In recent years, Timothee Chalamet used it to flex his fashion prowess, the cast of The Idol used it to gaslight us into thinking it was going to be a good show (as we extensively reviewed: it wasn’t), and the Don’t Worry Darling cast played out their workplace drama for the world to see. This year was no exception. Lido was alight with couture gowns and paparazzi flashes, albeit a lot less drama and gossip to satiate us. So, rather than hashing out the latest cast feuds, let’s talk about the films.
What to watch at the Venice Film Festival 2024?
The 81st Venice International Film Festival is organized by La Biennale di Venezia and ran on the Lido di Venezia from 28 August to 7 September 2024. A parade of A-listers descended upon the city, ferried to Lido in glamorous water taxis to promote some of the films we’ll be seeing at award shows this year, and….some films that flopped.
Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore – those chameleons of the silver screen – graced the red carpet for Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut, The Room Next Door, which ultimately snagged the coveted Golden Lion (Venice’s top prize). The ever-ethereal Nicole Kidman turned heads alongside her fresh-faced co-star Harris Dickinson after her turn in The Perfect Couple. Meanwhile, Daniel Craig proved he’s still got it, swapping his Bond tuxedo Loewe alongside new It Boy Drew Starkey in Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer.”
This year’s theatrics were at their peak – enough to manufacture and stoke social media chatter. And it worked. Brad Pitt and George Clooney played up their pairing’s nostalgia factor by chasing each other around the red carpet, reliving their youth but also relying on the reputations of their glory days. Luca Guadanino took a selfie with his absolutely stacked cast. Jenna Ortega looking fabulous in one of her gothic Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice outfits proved that thematic press tour dressing is far from dead.
But this year’s films were just as conversation-worthy. Let’s dive into the films that have everyone talking:
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton returns to the 1988 classic that launched his career, reuniting with Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder while adding Gen Z darling – Jenna Ortega – to the mix. After her turn in Wednesday, Scream, and even the video for Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste,” it’s clear that Ortega can handle horror – she’s a scream queen with the acting chops to back it up. The result is a nostalgic trip that manages to feel fresh, thanks in large part to Ortega’s deadpan charm (honed to perfection in Wednesday) as set in counterpoint to Keaton’s manic energy. It’s a welcome return to form for Burton. His triumphant release is a rare example of commercially and critically successful and was an energetic opening to the Festival.
Babygirl
The latest in the buzzy pantheon of female-driven age-gap dramas, Babygirl carves out a fresh niche for our darling Ms. Kidman. After her comic turn in A Family Affair, A24’s latest offering sees her playing an all-business CEO who becomes entangled with her much younger intern (Harris Dickinson). Fans of Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper, or The Iron Claw will recognize Dickinson and admire his remarkable range. It takes an impressive young actor to shine alongside Kidman but Dickinson is up for the task. Director Halina Reijn – fresh off her Gen Z slasher hit Bodies Bodies Bodies – brings a distinctly female gaze to the May-December romance trope. The result is a steamy, thought-provoking exploration of power dynamics that will have HR departments squirming in their seats.
The Room Next Door
Pedro Almodóvar ventures into English-language territory with this Golden Lion winner, proving that his particular brand of melodrama translates beautifully in any tongue. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s book What Are You Going Through, the film pairs Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, two of cinema’s most captivating chameleons. It follows a writer who reconnects with an old friend after years of distance in a tale of friendship, grief, and deep discussions about what it means to be a writer. It’s intimate and intellectual but feels accessible and human thanks to Almodóvar’s direction and the nuanced performances of these two powerhouse thespians.
Maria
This year’s Venice International Film Festival was a big one for shimmering stars of the silver screen. Angelina Jolie triumphed as opera legend Maria Callas, securing instant iconic status and positioning herself for Oscar recognition. The gravitas she lends to Pablo Larraín’s portrait of Callas reveals that Jolie’s side projects (like her fashion brand, Atelier Jolie) have not dampened her acting skills. Following in the footsteps of Natalie Portman’s Jackie and Kristen Stewart’s Spencer, Jolie disappears into the role of the troubled diva. Larraín’s dreamlike direction and Jolie’s raw performance make for a haunting exploration of fame, art, and the price of genius. When picking Jolie for the titular role, Larrain said he wanted an actress who would “naturally and organically be that diva,” and Jolie delivered with aching nuance. Oscar buzz is already building, and rightly so.
Queer
Speaking of actors challenging themselves, no one is in their comfort zone in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer. For this adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novel, Guadagnino reunites with his A Bigger Splash star Ralph Fiennes and ropes in Daniel Craig. Craig shed his 007 persona entirely in order to play Lee – a Burroughs stand-in – as he navigates the seedy underbelly of mid-century Mexico City. It’s a mix between last year’s Venice darling Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodóvar and Guadagnino’s famous Call Me By Your Name.Drew Starkey – of Outer Banks fame – is the object of his desire, with Guadagnino’s camera lingering on his lithe frame in a manner that would make even Timothée Chalamet blush. It also stars singer Omar Apollo in his first major acting role. Between unflinching sex scenes and luscious landscapes, it’s a heady blend of desire and ennui that solidifies Guadagnino’s place as cinema’s Yearner In Chief.
Disclaimer
Venice isn’t all movies. Some limited dramas also make their way to Lido. Two years ago, The Idol got the full Venice treatment, but we know how that went. Luckily, Alfonso Cuarón’s return to the festival circuit fared better. This twisty psychological thriller stars Cate Blanchett – last at Venice with Tar. This time, she plays a documentary filmmaker whose life unravels when a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table. As always, Blanchett is a force of nature, her icy exterior cracking as she realizes that she’s the subject of a book that will reveal her long-buried secrets. Cuarón proves he’s as adept at space epics as he is with intimate character studies, crafting a nail-biting exploration of truth, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves.
The Order
Starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, and Jurnee Smollett, The Order is a historical crime drama that plunges us into the action-packed world of counterfeiting operations, bank robberies, and armored car heists in the Pacific Northwest. Told through the eyes of the lead detective, these crimes are deemed acts of domestic terrorism, revealing the deep-seated hatred and violence in the United States. Inspired by the January 6 insurrection – when nooses were hung in front of the Capitol Building – this film references a fictional white nationalist insurrection that’s at the center of William Luther Pierce’s 1978 novel The Turner Diaries. Taking this hatred back to its roots, The Order explores how these same psychologies have been buried in the US consciousness for decades.
Joe Alwyn, Taylor Swift’s ex-London Boy, sauntered through Venice alongside castmates Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. This sprawling epic follows a Hungarian immigrant architect (Brody) navigating love, loss, and artistic integrity. Initially forced to toil in poverty, he soon wins a contract that changes the course of his life for the next 30 years. Clocking in at a hefty three-and-a-half hours, it’s not for the faint of heart. But those who stick with it will be richly rewarded with a deeply felt meditation on the American Dream and the cost of creation. Corbet’s ambition is a labor of love, as his official statement expresses how he spent “the better part of a decade revving the engine to bring this particular story to life.” His toiling is definitely worth it.
Joker: Folie à Deux
Closing Venice was the ambitious, melodramatic Jukebox musical Joker: Folie à Deux. It’s the polarizing sequel to the controversial original, and although everyone’s talking about it — no one can make up their minds about whether or not it’s good. Todd Phillips returns to Gotham, bringing Lady Gaga along for the ride as Harley Quinn to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. The addition of musical numbers is either a stroke of genius or a bridge too far, depending on who you talk with. Phoenix and Gaga commit fully to the madness, their chemistry undeniable even as the plot threatens to buckle under the weight of its own ambition.
This is a swing for the fences that doesn’t always connect, but you have to admire the creative audacity. Gaga is electric, though you can’t help but wonder if her talents are wasted in this convoluted film that, just like the original, isn’t always sure what it’s trying to say.
As the curtain falls on another Venice Film Festival, one thing is clear: cinema is alive and well, continuing to push boundaries and provoke thought even in the face of industry upheaval. Whether these films will stand the test of time remains to be seen, but for now, they’ve given us plenty to chew on as we sail away from the Lido and into the heart of awards season.
Optimus Prime and Megatron put up a fight, but in the end, the robots were no match for everyone’s favorite bio-exorcist.
After an unusually close box office race, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” emerged victorious over newcomer Paramount and Hasbro’s animated “Transformers One” to retain the No. 1 spot for three consecutive weekends. The spooky Warner Bros. sequel added a strong $26 million from 4,172 theaters, bringing its tally to $225 million domestically and $329.7 million globally.
Meanwhile, “Transformers One” kicked off behind expectations with $25 million from 3,978 venues. It’s a meager start for the movie, which cost $75 million and was targeting a start of $30 million to $40 million. It only brought in $14 million internationally for a worldwide total of $39 million. Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry and Scarlett Johansson lead the voice cast of “Transformers One,” the franchise’s first theatrical animated film since 1986’s “The Transformers: The Movie.” That film was a box office disappointment, though its reputation among fans has improved over the years.
“Transformers One,” an origin story directed by Josh Cooley (“Toy Story 4”) about the feuding Autobots and Decepticons, has received positive reviews and encouraging audience scores, so ticket sales could rebound in the coming weeks. Several post-pandemic animated films, including Pixar’s “Elemental” and Illumination’s “Migration,” ended up having the staying power to keep bringing in audiences in the months after their debuts. Yet “Transformers One” might face competition from “The Wild Robot,” an animated film that opens on Sept. 27.
“This is a lukewarm opening for an animation adaptation in a live-action series,” says David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. He believes it’s to be expected that initial revenues wouldn’t be anywhere near the live-action “Transformers” series, which have amassed $5.28 billion across seven films. “Industry expectations are high for a big series like this, but an animation adaptation is not going to hold all or even most its live-action audience,” Gross adds. “It’s too big a shift.”
Another newcomer, Lionsgate’s “Never Let Go,” landed in fourth place with a disappointing $4.5 million from 2,667 venues in its debut. The Halle Berry-led survival thriller is the latest bleak single-digit start for Lionsgate after last weekend’s assassin thriller “The Killer’s Game” ($2.6 million debut) and a string of August releases, including “The Crow” reboot ($4.6 million debut), “1992” ($1.6 million debut) and “Borderlands” ($8.6 million debut). Reviews and audience scores have been mixed — “Never Let Go” holds a 61% on Rotten Tomatoes and “C+” CinemaScore — which doesn’t necessarily bode well for word-of-mouth on the $20 million-budgeted film.
Also new to theaters is Demi Moore’s body-horror satire “The Substance,” which opened in sixth place with $3.1 million from 1,949 theaters. Coralie Fargeat (“Revenge”) directed the movie about an aging celebrity who takes a black market drug to recapture her youth. Mubi is releasing “The Substance,” which premiered at Cannes and earned Moore some of the best reviews of her career.
Elsewhere on box office charts, “Speak No Evil,” Universal and Blumhouse’s remake of the 2022 Danish thriller, slid to No. 3 with $5.9 million from 3,375 theaters. That’s a 48% decline from its opening, which is solid for the horror genre. The pitch-black comedy of manners, starring James McAvoy and Mackenzie Davis, has grossed $21.45 million in North America and $42 million worldwide to date.
Disney and Marvel’s superhero sequel “Deadpool & Wolverine” rounded out the top five with $3.8 million from 2,450 locations in its ninth weekend of release. The R-rated film, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, has remained in the top three since it released in late July and has grossed a remarkable $627 million domestically and $1.317 billion globally to date. It’s the fifth-biggest domestic and seventh-largest global release in the MCU. It’s also the highest-grossing R-rated film in history.
In limited release, A24’s dark comedy “A Different Man” grossed $56,126 from four screens in New York and Los Angeles — translating to $14,031 per location. Directed by Aaron Schimberg and co-starring Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson, the film follows an aspiring actor who undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his face. Sort of like “The Substance,” this extreme method of betterment doesn’t necessarily make everything better. “A Different Man” will expand again on Sept. 27 and continue to slowly roll out in North American through the fall.
Overall, domestic revenues are 11.9% behind the same point in 2023 and 25.7% behind 2019. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has been the lone breakout of September, with Tim Burton’s film accounting for around 47% of domestic revenue for the otherwise sleepy month, according to Comscore.
“The marketplace is in dire need of a boost,” says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “Fortunately, October is on track to deliver interesting [films, such as] ‘Joker: Folie À Deux,’ ‘Saturday Night’ and ‘Anora.’”
The same amount of Autobots and Goths rolled out to the cinema this weekend. Transformers One, an animated prequel film to the Transformers franchise, opened on Friday, and it had some stiff competition with Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice sequel. The bots are estimated to earn a $26 million opening weekend per Deadline, with Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceearning $25 million during its third week in theaters. The robots did pretty well, considering it is a fall animated flick competing against a highly anticipated sequel as we’re approaching Halloween. However, as word gets around about the film’s positivereviews from critics, maybe things can turn around for the Autobots. It could also find more success on streaming; surely Paramount+. Either way, it’s the season of spooking, and Beetlejuice will probably be topping the box office for the time being.
It’s officially September, and for the first weekend of the month, Beetlejuice Beetlejuicewas the record-breaking, box office winner.
Warner Bros. and Tim Burton’s horror-comedy sequel opened to $145.4 million. According to Variety, the bulk of that came domestically, where it began its theatrical run with $110 million. It’s the second-biggest September debut of all time behind the $123 million debut of 2017’s It: Chapter One (and directly ahead of It: Chapter Two’s $91 million in 2019). For 2024 overall, it’s the third-best domestic opener of the year behind Deadpool & Wolverine’s massive $211.4 million start and Inside Out 2’s $154.2 million.
There’s been a big marketing push behind Beetlejuice Beetlejuice over the past several months, and renewed interest in the larger franchise. Along with getting people to rewatch the first film to see if it still holds up (and maybe just Burton’s entire filmography overall), it definitely helps that the 90s animated series recently hit Tubi ahead of the sequel’s release. Its stars can also be credited: people love them some Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, and Jenna Ortega, particularly the latter thanks to Wednesday and the Scream sequels. Add on the strong word of mouth from its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and it’s no surprise that folks have drank the Juice, as it were.
What else is there to look forward to this month? Genre-wise, Blumhouse’s Speak No Evilremake will finally hit theaters on September 13, along with a one-day run for the first three episodes of Dandadan, Lionsgate’s action-comedy The Killer’s Game, and the Megan Fox sci-fi horror flick Subservience. The folllowing week on September 20, we’ve got the animated prequel Transformers One, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s The Substance, and Halle Berry protecting kids once more in Never Let Go. Finally, September 27 will close things out with Hellboy: The Crooked Man, The Wild Robot, Azrael, and Megalopolis.
The movies in competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival told a story of a porous U.S. film world, a washed up scene, or something in between. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Warner Bros., Niko Tavernise/A24, Focus Features, Universal Pictures
Exhausted from jetlag and with stomachs full of way too much pasta, Vulture’s correspondents have finally returned from the Venice Film Festival. Both of us were on the Lido for the very first time. Besides the thrill of seeing stars in their natural habitat, and the joy of devoting multiple hours a day to experiencing the cream of global cinema, what did we make of the experience?
Nate Jones: This was the first Venice to take place since last year’s SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. On one hand: The stars were back! On the other: American film production was shut down for a significant chunk of 2023, which is when many movies in this year’s festival would have been trying to shoot. Did you notice any effect on the quality of the films in competition?
Alison Willmore: Maybe I’m loopy from having spent an unplanned night in the Charles de Gaulle Holiday Inn Express on my way home, but it’s hard for me to tell what’s normal anymore. 2023 was the strike, but before that was the pandemic, which makes it years of business as not-usual, and at this point I feel like the real question is what the standard is going to look like going forward. There certainly wasn’t a shortage of starry U.S. productions, though I think it says less about the strike than the state of the industry in general that the big studio contributions were sequels — Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (which I liked!) and Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux (which I did not).
Meanwhile, the feature that actively sets out to be a Great American Movie of the old school, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, is set in Pennsylvania and New York but shot in Hungary and Italy, and a lot of the other American movies also had an international tilt. Queer (directed by the Italian Luca Guadagnino) is about American expats in Mexico City and South America, while Maria (directed by the Chilean Pablo Larraín) is about the Greek-American opera star Maria Callas living out her last days in Paris. Babygirl and The Room Next Door, both set in New York, are the work of Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn and Spanish legend Pedro Almodóvar. I don’t know what to make of this, so I’ll turn the question to you: Is this a sign of greater porousness in American filmmaking, or a sign of how washed our homegrown scene is at the moment that we need to look abroad for ambitious visions?
Jones: I have a hard time condemning the lack of bold visions in American cinema at a festival that featured The Brutalist, which — whatever else you want to say about it — is undoubtedly ambitious: a three-and-a-half-hour movie about a Hungarian Holocaust survivor trying to put his stamp on the New World. Despite the silent T in his last name, Brady Corbet is as American as golf courses and shopping malls (each of which are prevalent in his hometown of Scottsdale, AZ). That he had to go abroad to make this film is less a condemnation of American filmmaking, and more of American financing. The Brutalist was funded by eight separate production companies, and you’d probably have to be an accounting savant to untangle the European film-board benefits that made it possible. The oft-rapturous reviews that greeted its premiere were, I think, a reflection of the fact that its mere existence felt like a minor miracle.
Still, Corbet was one of only two American directors in competition this year. (The other was Phillips LOL.) Stateside filmmakers were better represented in the wider festival. Besides Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the out-of-competition lineup saw Jon Watts’s Wolfs, Harmony Korine’s Baby Invasion, and Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2, while Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements played in a sidebar. That feels like a fitting snapshot of where the industry’s at right now, for good and for ill: You’ve got a legacy-quel that’s going to make zillions of dollars; a big starry project that a streamer has insanely decided not to give a wide-release to; a self-funded auteur epic; and a winky metafictional music doc — plus whatever the hell Baby Invasion is.
But your remark about the international bent of films like Queer and Babygirl reminded me of a late-night conversation I had with some fellow journalists who were complaining that our own directors were too online to make great films. Too self-conscious about pissing off their followers, their film’s politics often felt pre-digested. That, to me, was the fun of a film like Babygirl: Reijn was willing to follow her own strange muse wherever it took her, angry commenters be damned. What do you make of this?
Willmore: I can definitely see that argument, though, funnily, I thought Reijn’s previous film, the horror comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies, suffered from not being online enough. But, related to that, one of the things that’s compelling about Babygirl and The Room Next Door, which is Almodóvar first feature in English, is that they both feel off-kilter — set in versions of the U.S. that are clearly being conjured up by someone outside of it. The warehouse automation company presented by Reijn in Babygirl feels more like a low-grade corporate fever dream than an attempt at a realistic place, and its ideas about American workplace culture and sexual mores are all openly drawn from the ‘90s erotic thrillers that Reijn set out to subvert. Meanwhile, The Room Next Door layers Almodóvar’s exquisitely dressed and decorated style over a New York setting in a way that reminded me of Sex and the City in that the writer characters live in fabulous places they shouldn’t be able to afford. But it’s also a film about grappling with mortality that takes an abrupt turn toward the legal issues surrounding assisted suicide toward the end — an odd final development that, again, felt born out of an outside viewpoint on puritanical American morality.
I’d like to hope, in general, that we’re relinquishing the surface-level, Twitter-applause-line style of politics that has plagued American pop culture for years now. God knows, Korine’s Baby Invasion wasn’t beholden to anything except his own nihilistic vision (and a mystifying continuing attachment to feature length runtimes). His latest venture into post-cinema is a first-person shooter inspired expedition around a Florida that’s simultaneously the center and the ends of the earth — whether you love it or hate it, you could never say that it’s playing safe. And in its own way, I’d say the same for Familiar Touch, Sarah Friendland’s lovely little drama about a woman with dementia that’s proof there’s hope for American independent filmmaking even when it’s not about being a Great Artist (though, coincidentally, H. Jon Benjamin shows up in a supporting role playing, like Adrien Brody, an architect). What I loved about Familiar Touch is that it feels genuinely guided by its main character, who’s as prickly as she is personable, and it never condescends to her by trying to fit her journey into a neat message.
But that’s enough high-falutin’ talk for now. Let’s get to the crass American conversation we’ve been waiting on, which is to say: Nate, which of these folks is ending up in the Oscar race?
Jones: I thought you’d never ask! Unlike Cannes, which takes pleasure in holding Hollywood at arm’s length, Venice embraces its status as the kickoff to unofficial awards season. However all the fall festivals are at a weird moment, Oscar-wise. Not since Nomadland in 2020 has the eventual Best Picture winner bowed at Venice, Telluride, or Toronto. That season comes with a considerable asterisk, of course. If you write it off, Venice hasn’t premiered the Best Picture winner since 2017, when The Shape of Water took the Golden Lion ahead of its triumphant campaign of monster-fucking.
I don’t know if we saw any future Best Picture winners at the Lido this year. The closest was probably The Brutalist. There’s a world where it gets nominated for Picture, Director, and Actor; there’s another where it doesn’t even come out in 2024. (Plus, the year after Oppenheimer, will voters really reward another three-hour mid-century epic, with a fraction of the commercial prospects?)
If I had to plant a flag for a nomination that’s definitely going to happen, it’s Angelina Jolie for Maria. Both of Larrain’s previous off-kilter biopics, 2016’s Jackie and 2021’s Spencer, earned Best Actress noms for their stars, and this one too has a thrilling interplay between the legend of La Callas and Jolie’s own imperious star image. You were not alone in finding Maria underwhelming, but all the reasons critics disliked it — the unbroken hauteur of Jolie’s performance, the film’s stately refusal to go Full Camp — only makes me think Oscar voters will fall hard for it. Plus, Maria just got bought by Netflix, who have never been shy about throwing money around in awards season. (They got Ana de Armas a nom for Blonde, for goodness’ sake.) Jolie feels like a lock, and might even be the early frontrunner.
I’m a little less confident in predicting nods for Queer’s Daniel Craig and Babygirl’s Nicole Kidman, both of whom are repping sexually explicit dramas that fall further outside the Oscar sweet spot. (Both films will be released by A24.) But each turn in surprisingly vulnerable performances worthy of consideration: Craig for molding himself into a lonely, lovelorn loser, Kidman for her raw portrayal of female desire. Forget the film’s copious sex scenes; given her history of tabloid scrutiny, the scene where she’s seen getting Botox injections may be Babygirl’s most naked reveal.
When it comes to awards that won’t happen, I’m skeptical Joker: Folie a Deux will be able to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, which earned double-digit noms and a Best Actor trophy for Joaquin Phoenix. Not only was the sequel savaged by critics, its star now comes into the season dogged by the mystery of why he abandoned the new Todd Haynes project shortly before production — a question Phoenix dodged at the film’s official press conference. Plus, Lady Gaga, who everyone agrees is the best part of the movie, is in it less than you’d expect. This time, the only music Joker will be dancing to is a sad trombone.
In 1988, the movie releases of the day were something of a mixed bag. From titles like Killer Klowns from Outer Space to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it was an “anything goes” sort of year for film. Maybe that’s why Beetlejuice managed to “get past the censors,” so to speak. Released on March 30, 1988, it was hardly expected to be the commercial success that it was, raking in seventy-five million dollars on a fifteen-million-dollar budget. Unsurprisingly, getting it made was something of an uphill battle, with one executive at Universal telling Beetlejuice’s co-writer and eventual co-producer Larry Wilson that trying to put it into production was a waste of time. Wilson, in fact, recalled the unnamed person’s naysaying as follows: “‘This piece of weirdness, this is what you’re going to go out into the world with? You’re developing into a very good executive. You’ve got great taste in material. Why are you going to squander all that for this piece of shit’ was basically what he was saying.”
Soon after, the Beetlejuice script was sold to the Geffen Company (because, needless to say, gays have taste). Perhaps because, at that time, it had made something of a name for itself in the genre of “weird,” “off-kilter” movies like After Hours and Little Shop of Horrors. Cutting to 2024, not only is the Geffen Company no longer around (it became defunct in 1998), but all of its content (save for Beavis and Butt-Head Do America and maybe Joe’s Apartment) now belongs to Warner Bros., which Geffen had originally distributed its films through. Perhaps that’s part of why Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has a noticeably different tone that has less to do with “the current climate” and more to do with being under the thumb of a major corporate juggernaut.
And, talking of the current climate in film, it’s obviously vastly different from the abovementioned mixed bag/almost anything goes vibe of 1988. Indeed, 2024 has been an especially marked year for remakes, reboots and various forms of sequels—including Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine, Alien: Romulus and The Crow. All of which is to say that, as most already knew, Hollywood is notorious for playing it safe. In other words, the suits controlling the purse strings rarely, if ever, take a gamble on anything that isn’t “existing IP” that already has a built-in audience. Which is the category that, “kooky” or not, Beetlejuice definitely falls into—making it right at home among the movie release climate of 2024.
That said, the obvious tonal shift of the sequel is a direct result of not just the “corporate-ification” of the movie thanks to Warner Bros. being entirely at the helm (complete with cross-promotional products like the Fabergé x Beetlejuice Beetlejuice® fine jewelry collection and the Limited-Edition Fanta Haunted Apple x Beetlejuice Beetlejuice® drinks), but the corporate-ification of all aspects of the movie industry in general. Even when it comes to what would have once been deemed more “indie” fare (which usually tended to be a euphemism for “offbeat” [a.k.a. unclassifiable by Hollywood executives]). Tim Burton’s own film evolution provides no better example of that, showing a stronger predilection for corporate-ifying his now “signature style” over the years (see: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows and Dumbo). In branching out to TV (for the first full-blown time) with Wednesday, Burton also revealed his increasing inclination toward “softcore gloom,” a byproduct, perhaps, of too many years working with major studio backing. And yes, collaborating with Jenna Ortega on the series led to her being “thought of” for a major part in the sequel.
In it, Ortega plays Astrid Deetz, daughter to Lydia (Winona Ryder), who has herself gone totally corporate by hosting a sham-y supernatural reality show called Ghost House. Granted, Lydia can actually communicate with the dead—as her rapport with Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) showed audiences back in ‘88. Unfortunately for Astrid, however, Lydia has never been able to wield her gift for the purpose of seeing Richard (Santiago Cabrera), Astrid’s father whose cause of death was a boat accident in South America. And no, his body was never recovered (which seems like it might a detail that’s brought back later, but it isn’t).
Lydia and Richard had already divorced before his death, which speaks more to Ryder’s original vision for the character in a sequel: “I never thought about Lydia ever being a mom. I thought she would just be this spinster by choice in that attic…” Turns out, corporate-ification makes such a thought an impossibility, with Ryder also adding, “…but I think that’s where the incredible Jenna Ortega comes in. She answered a ton of those questions, and it felt so right.” Some might even say it “felt so right” that it was the true reason “destiny” made it take this long to put together a sequel—well, that, and “destiny” also needed to align Monica Bellucci romantically with Burton to give her a part that, once upon a time, probably would have gone to Helena Bonham Carter. (Side note: the role is an undeniable aesthetic nod to Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas.)
In any case, some might like to see Lydia and Astrid as a “macabre” version of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, with their relationship mirroring the latter’s more during their estrangement in season six—until they finally get close once Astrid realizes her mother’s medium abilities are the real deal. Before that pivotal moment though, Astrid’s initial resentment-filled dynamic with Lydia is established via the plot construct of an important funeral. Thus, her rage toward her “Alleged Mother” is exhibited in all its complex glory when screenwriting duo Alfred Gough and Miles Millar bring them together against Astrid’s will for the funeral of Lydia’s father/Astrid’s grandfather, Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones, who might as well have “died” in real life after being cancelled for child pornography/sex offender charges). And yes, as some have accurately pointed out, Charles a.k.a. Jones enjoys way too much screen time for someone that’s not actually in it—in addition to pointing out that having a children’s choir sing “Day-O” at the funeral of an IRL sex offender is a bit…ill-advised. (On the plus side, however, his death allows Catherine O’Hara many opportunities to shine as Delia Deetz.)
What’s more, while Burton has also claimed that the Maitlands aren’t featured in the story because they’ve “moved on,” the fairer assumption (apart from Davis admitting, “Our characters were stuck the way they looked when they died forever, so it’s been a while, it’s been a minute”) is that Baldwin isn’t without his own controversies of late (*cough cough* killing someone). And, if corporate-ification is capable of anything, it’s steering clear of any controversies that might prompt a dip in sales. Except no one seemed to consider the potential of Brad Pitt’s inevitably fledgling reputation in the wake of Angelina Jolie’s lawsuit claiming the actor has a “history of physical abuse.” Nonetheless, he serves as a producer on the project, which, whether intentional or not, found him working with Jennifer Aniston’s other ex, Justin Theroux (who plays Lydia’s annoying user of a fiancé, Rory).
Elsewhere, the addition of Willem Dafoe to the cast as Wolf Jackson—a B-rate actor who died while playing a detective, therefore also acts as one in the afterlife—feels a bit overstuffed and out of place, contributing to some of the issues with being able to effectively service all the storylines and characters (especially Bellucci’s Delores) without making everything feel somewhat rushed at the conclusion. Granted, there is at least a satisfying-to-OG-fans wedding ceremony between Lydia and Beetlejuice reserved for Act Three (during which Lydia, in her “updated” [read: post-woke] state, makes a joke that comments on their unsettling age gap—and just in time for age gap autumn, too).
But even during these moments that cater to the original fanbase, the shift in tone from Beetlejuice when it was a “low-budget,” underdog affair is night and day when compared to the over-the-top, trying-as-hard-as-possible-for-laughs posturing of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. And don’t even get one started on the hooey final scene that leads to coming across as a totally non sequitur nod to A Nightmare on Elm Street. Even so, there are worse “bad dreams” than this sequel, and many others have failed miserably in trying to achieve a follow-up to such a beloved movie (see: Speed 2: Cruise Control or Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps). Besides, it’s almost impossible to make a sequel better than the original (save for rare exceptions like Die Hard 2 or The Dark Knight).
But, as best as it can, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice stays true to the wonderful weirdness of Beetlejuice (even if that wonderful weirdness is a little too manicured now). Alas, there’s no denying that the scrappy, rough-hewn nature of the original is something that can never be recreated in the present landscape…regardless of Ryder keeping the exact same coif as Lydia when she was sixteen (in a maneuver that smacks of Briony Tallis’ never-changing hairstyle in 2007’s Atonement).
Though Burton brought back original stars Winona Ryder, Catherina O’Hara and Michael Keaton for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, his 2024 follow-up to the 1988 classic, Baldwin and Davis do not return.
“I think the thing was for me I didn’t want to just tick any boxes,” Burton told People. “So even though they were such an amazing integral part of the first one, I was focusing on something else.”
In the original film, Baldwin and Davis played Adam and Barbara Maitland, a recently deceased couple confined to the Connecticut house where they used to live when at odds with the home’s new residents, the Deetz family: Charles (Jeffrey Jones) his daughter Lydia (Ryder) and Charles’s wife Delia (O’Hara).
In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — which wowed audiences during its Venice Film Fest premiere on Wednesday — Jenna Ortega plays Lydia’s teenage daughter who accidentally reopens the door to the afterlife.
“A sequel like this, it really had to do with the time,” Burton continued. “That was my hook into it, the three generations of mother, daughter, granddaughter. And that [would] be the nucleus of it. I couldn’t have made this personally back in 1989 or whatever.”
Davis previously told Entertainment Tonight in April that her theory was she was not returning because “ghosts don’t age.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will release in theaters Sept. 6.
The long-in-coming sequel isn’t just a nostalgic retread — it’s a reminder of what makes the director great. Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros.
Midway through Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara) demands to know “where’s the obnoxious little goth girl who tormented me all those years ago?” The flamboyant conceptual artist is talking to her stepdaughter, Lydia (Winona Ryder), who’s grown from the morose teenager of Beetlejuice (1988) into the middle-aged star of a hokey ghost-hunting reality show. But you get the feeling that this is a question director Tim Burton could just as well be posing to himself. The original film was born out of the hectic creative heyday Burton had in the ’80s and ’90s, before he got mired in moribund Disney remakes and bewildering adaptations starring (an otherwise great) Eva Green. Like his character Lydia, who describes what she’s done as selling out, Burton passed from a youthful infatuation with darkness into more grown-up concerns, among them whichever one made 2019’s Dumbo seem like a good idea. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in some ways itself a product of those concerns, both as a 36-years-later sequel and as a story about how Lydia has since stepped into the position of the distracted parent who’s unable to connect with their own moody child. And yet somehow there’s nothing cynical about it. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is, instead, a return to form that finds Burton and much of the previous cast getting weird, gross, and, yes, goth in both an idyllic New England town and a gleefully bureaucratic afterlife.
In the first Beetlejuice, monied New Yorkers were just as much the antagonists as the fast-talking ghoulie of the title (sort of — he’s technically “Betelgeuse” in that film). The Deetz family first arrive in Winter River, Connecticut, full of condescension, resentment, and some regrettable approaches to remodeling, and it feels entirely in character that by Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, they appear to have partially or entirely returned to the city. Lydia, who’s kept the distinct spiky bangs while graduating to more Elvira-esque dresses, plays “psychic mediator” in front of a live studio audience while her producer and boyfriend, Rory (an oily Justin Theroux), hovers nearby. Her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, made for this), is ensconced in a boarding school where she heads up a doomer-y climate club. Delia has become a Manhattan art star, if her gallery-wide show, “The Human Canvas,” is any indication. The death of her husband, Charles, is both the inciting incident and a handy way of dealing with the fact that the actor who originally played the man, Jeffrey Jones, is now a convicted sex offender — he gets his head bitten off by a shark and spends the rest of the film as a walking torso. Charles’s funeral provides an excuse for the three women to return to Winter River, where, in the course of cleaning out the house, they come back into contact with a certain foul-mouthed spirit who’s still holding a candle for Lydia, the one who got away.
Running through Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the fitting theme of shaking off malaise, whether that comes in the form of lingering grief (Astrid’s father, played by Santiago Cabrera, died not long after he and Lydia split), romantic inertia (Rory hides his manipulations behind therapyspeak), or supernatural hauntings. While Michael Keaton slips zestfully back into the role of Beetlejuice like he never left, and the always reliable O’Hara is spookily unchanged, Ryder plays Lydia, poignantly, as a brittle adult who’s stuck dressing in the style she affected a few decades ago, as though she’d gotten interrupted before she could fully finish growing up. When she begs Rory for one of her pills to get through the day, it’s a moment that’s just on the edge of being a little too real, but the movie otherwise wears its emotional allegories lightly. Lydia may have some unfinished trauma from the past that she has to exorcize, but she also has actual ghosts to contend with. When Astrid, a devout nonbeliever, meets a dreamy neighborhood boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), she learns that her mother isn’t delusional about all the visions she claims to have after all, and soon the characters have to enlist the help of a fiend whose name they never wanted to speak again (much less say three times). In there, also, is a stop-motion sequence, undead hallways at impossible angles, all the cleverly mangled waiting-room corpses imaginable, and the amusing but poetic visual of the Deetz house cloaked in a mourning veil. It’s all rendered in scenes that lean heavily on practical effects (including a demonic baby Beetlejuice that crawls across the ceiling à la the detox scene from Trainspotting).
If that sounds like an odd, lopsided plot, well, the first Beetlejuice lurched along to its own idiosyncratic calypso rhythms too. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trades that Caribbean beat in for a disco one that works startlingly well, maybe because it matches the film’s jolting energy. When Monica Bellucci, playing Beetlejuice’s soul-sucking ex Delores, staples the chopped-up chunks of her body back together to the sound of the Bee Gees, it’s a gruesomely jubilant sequence. And when the film arrives at a lip-synced version of “MacArthur Park,” there’s genuine joy to the way the musical number is staged. So many recent revisitations of old properties play like corporate attempts to reanimate the dead — literally, in the case of movies like Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Alien: Romulus. But Beetlejuice Beetlejuice manages to avoid the feeling that its only obligation is to dutifully run through everything familiar one more time. Instead, watching it is a small but significant relief, like reconnecting with an estranged friend and finding out that you still get along after all — and for more reasons than just shared history, back when you were both obnoxious little goth girls.
Turns out the Elvira-inspired intro to the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trailer is rooted in a new character development for the grown-up Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder).
Evil’s Michael Emerson on Working Opposite a Giant, Hairy, Five-Eyed Demon
In a new interview with Ryder in Empire, we learn that after the events of 1988’s Beetlejuice, the goth teen icon known for her deadpan delivery and penchant for ghost photography leaned into her relationship with the dead to “host her own TV series: Ghost House With Lydia Deetz.” We cannot wait to see what that entails, and if it will be a way to explore how the Maitlands might have moved on once they resolved their unfinished business—when alive, they’d longed to be parents; at the end of Beetlejuice, they’re shown to be helping raise Lydia—and crossed over. Original film stars Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin are notably absent from the announced cast list of Warner Bros. upcoming sequel to Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice.
Ryder talked about returning as an older Lydia and reuniting with director Burton along with co-stars Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara. “I struggle to find the words,” Ryder told the magazine. “It’s just one of the most special experiences that I’ve ever had. The fact that we’re coming back to it, it’s… It’s beyond.” She also added, “This is a first for me. I’ve never revisited a character, ever.”
From the looks of it, Lydia is that Gen X goth adult whose look may have shifted slightly but remains curated in black with her iconic spiked bangs and smudgy charcoal eyeliner. In the clip of her with the Elvira dress homage, it’s clear Burton is once again paying tribute to how horror hosts evoke that effortless dark demeanor with a bit of camp that younger generations might not get. And it makes sense, because one of the things Burton wants to tackle with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is what happens when the weird goth kid grows up. He put a lot of his personal experience in Lydia’s new story, he told Empire. “The new film became very personal to me, through the Lydia character,” he said. “What happened to Lydia? You know, what happens to people? What happens to all of us? What’s your journey from a gothic kind of weird teenager to what happens to you 35 years later?”
This was key to Ryder’s journey of finding Lydia for the film. “I went through so many stages of, ‘Who is she now?’, but I always wanted to have it be Lydia. She can’t lose who she was,” she said. For one thing, she’s now mom to Astrid (played by Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega) who becomes involved with the summoning of Beetlejuice, bringing back Lydia’s memories of the past but also causing her to reflect who she’s become in the time since: “She can’t be the same person, she can’t be just completely deadpan, she has to have evolved, but she also has to have kept that thing she had when we first met her. So that was the big challenge for me.”
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE | Official Trailer
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens September 6 in theaters.
Tim Burton’sBeetlejuice introduced the blueprint for cinematic meta agents of chaos into pop culture long before Disney’s Genie from Aladdin or the MCU’s Deadpool and Loki. Without much of a mythology, save for some comparisons to trickster entities of folklore and classic lit like Puck from Shakespeare’s AMidsummer Night’s Dream, Betelgeuse—as his name is spelled in the film’s flashy neon sign—can be anything not beholden to a history.
First Fandoms: Emma McDonald
Michael Keaton’s original summoning of the character introduced Beetlejuice as an unreliable narrator, which is followed in every variant of him we’ve seen in television and on stage; he has powers we don’t quite understand and no one can control outside of saying his name three times before he can stop them. Keaton’s version of the character will seen again in this September’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice—and though there’s always some trepidation awaiting a long-in-the-making sequel, here’s why we’re too not worried about what to expect from this one.
In the 1988 dark comedy about life as ghosts for the recently departed, Keaton shone as the larger-than-life poltergeist in a performance that helped make Burton’s wacky creation iconic. With stand-up gags and stop-motion buffoonery (some of which might not be so PC nowadays), the villain of his own movie almost stole the show from Winona Ryder’s teen goth dream Lydia and her ghostly found family after nearly getting rid of her living family (who may have deserved it). The film grossed $74,664,632 in North America, garnering its success in theaters and being embraced as a hit family film about death. It also primed Keaton to reunite with Burton for Batman.
Image: WB Entertainment
Beetlejuice’s jump in the line from the films into becoming a cultural staple was propelled by Beetlejuice, the animated series. The cartoon had a more family-friendly, looser interpretation of the plot introduced in the film. It got rid of the Maitlands and the questionable child-bride thread, and instead made Beetlejuice a lovable manic sidekick Lydia rehabilitates into more of an anti-hero. Their spooky cartoon adventures ran from 1989 to 1991 and it became a popular movie-to-show experiment, solidifying Beetlejuice’s place as a spooky pop-culture star.
His inclusion in the real world through his presence at Universal Studios theme parks continued to keep the Ghost with the Most in the zeitgeist through the ‘90s. Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue was my first introduction to the character before watching the film, which came out before I was born. The live theme park stage show was a monster mash of pop-rock music covers performed by the Universal Monsters and hosted by Beetlejuice; it debuted in the ‘90s but had updated iterations throughout the years. It was a genius move by Universal, crafting a formative theme park-experience that made such an impact on monster kids, goths, and normies—reframing Beetlejuice as the crypt keeper for a new generation but for silly spooky nonsense.
Full Final Performance of Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue at Universal Studios Florida
Because… why is he hosting a graveyard jukebox musical? What does it have to do with the movie? Why are the Universal Monsters there? Wait—no, they make sense, why is he (a Warner Bros. property) there? By the time he jumped out of the grave none of those questions mattered; he was back and badder than ever. Beetlejuice has been a Universal Studios character meet and greet staple ever since—even past the closing of his revue back in 2015. Most recently in 2021, Beetlejuice got a Halloween Horror Nights house at Universal Studios Orlando; it proved to be one of the annual event’s most popular attractions and showed that fans were still clamoring for more, even before Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was greenlit.
Image: Universal Studios Products and Experiences
Still another iteration of Beetlejuice came to life shortly before the pandemic. In 2019 a Broadway musical adaptation of the property hit the stage for a stint before returning in 2021 and heading out on a national tour. The show, starring Alex Brightman (who recently was featured as Richard Dreyfuss in the Jaws behind-the-scenes play The Shark is Broken), may appear at first to be merely a musical version of the film—however, if you’ve seen it, you know it’s much more than that. The book for the musical, written by Scott Brown and Anthony King, departs greatly from the film with a more cohesive storyline, centering Lydia’s journey through the grief of losing her mother (while her dad quickly remarries Delia), and the Maitlands’ grief at not being able to live long enough to have a family. Both give the story more to explore at depth—all while retaining the funhouse comedy romp that comes from dealing with death by means of Beetlejuice’s comedic chaos counseling. By the time the second act hits, it feels like such a completely different story from the movie in a good way, and if it happens to stop in your town on tour, don’t miss it.
Image: Matthew Murphy
Each variant of the Beetlejuice story down to its core is about the character’s freedom to fit into any medium with meta commentary about death—perhaps because since he’s dead, he exists outside reality. His presence makes sense of the unexplainable not by giving answers but by exploring the questions people have about life and death through a movie, cartoon, haunted house, and musical. Beetlejuice’s modus operandi is to not entirely change others, but to be changed by the situations he’s in—all while being his best hedonistic self and at most encouraging the living to live a little through the horrors of humanity. It’s why he and Lydia have become goth legends for the Hot Topic and Spirit Halloween crowds. Beetlejuice isn’t high-brow “cinema,” it’s about a guy who’s the executioner of gallows humor. And that is why we shouldn’t be too worried about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: it’s not a legacy sequel that has a bar to reach, and I honestly think it might make fun of that concept in the best way. I’m just hoping for another good time, a new reason to laugh and not be afraid of death while seeing that Beetlejuice fella be up to no good again before getting exorcised back to his resting place… we know it’s not final.
The first teaser trailer for the highly anticipated Beetlejuice sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, hit the internet this week, delivering a satisfying dose of nostalgia for fans of the 1988 cult classic.
The trailer features returning cast members Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara as Lydia and Delia Deetz, respectively. Fans also caught a glimpse of the Deetz patriarch, Charles (Jeffrey Jones), in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo of sorts. Jones’s image appears on a bizarre-looking tombstone as a chorus of children sings an acapella rendition of Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)”.
Charles’s death solves two issues for the sequel: it gives Lydia a reason to return to Winter River, Connecticut with her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) in tow. And it also gives the film a narrative reason for not bringing back Jeffrey Jones.
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Since this is Beetlejuice, Charles Deetz could always return as a ghost. But his reps told The Hollywood Reporter that Jones wouldn’t appear in the film. Jones worked with director Tim Burton in multiple films, including Sleepy Hollow and Ed Wood. He is also famous for his work in Amadeus and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Why isn’t Jeffrey Jones in the sequel?
Jones’s exclusion from the film is likely due to his 2002 arrest for possession of child pornography and for soliciting explicit photos from an underage boy. Jones pleaded no contest to solicitation and was forced to register as a child sex offender. Jones’s career has stalled since the charges became public and has acted sporadically since then.
Jones’s exclusion from Hollywood seems to be the rare case where predatory behavior has lasting consequences.
Chelsea was born and raised in New Orleans, which explains her affinity for cheesy grits and Britney Spears. An pop culture journalist since 2012, her work has appeared on Autostraddle, AfterEllen, and more. Her beats include queer popular culture, film, television, republican clownery, and the unwavering belief that ‘The Long Kiss Goodnight’ is the greatest movie ever made. She currently resides in sunny Los Angeles, with her husband, 2 sons, and one poorly behaved rescue dog. She is a former roller derby girl and a black belt in Judo, so she is not to be trifled with. She loves the word “Jewess” and wishes more people used it to describe her.
