Yahoo Lifestyle I Genuinely Cannot Watch "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" The Same Way After Learning These 15 Fascinating Facts
🚨Warning: There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead!🚨
1.Winona Ryder and Tim Burton talked "on and off" for 15 years about doing a Beetlejuice sequel. "It was always very top secret," Winona said. "Tim would call and we’d meet in LA. I definitely got my hopes up a few times, and then I’d hear he was doing another movie. I know he was having those conversations with Catherine [O’Hara] and Michael [Keaton], too, but not all of us together. The only way to do it right was to have all of us."
She revealed that she was terrified when she heard the movie had been greenlit and immediately texted costars and friends, Michael Keaton and Catherine O'Hara. "Like, ‘How the fuck am I going to do this?’" she said. "I texted Michael and Catherine like, ‘I’m so excited and I’m also really scared.’ And they were like, 'So are we!'"
2.Jenna Ortega first learned about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice a couple of days after Wednesday dropped on Netflix. Tim Burton called Jenna to come into his office to chat about Wednesday, and when she got there, he "plopped" the script down in front of her and asked her to play Astrid.
"I said, 'Oh, okay, cool. That's interesting.' And he was like, 'No pressure! No pressure!' And then I got in my car, drove five minutes down the road, I parked on the side of the highway, sat on some rocks, and read the entire script," she said. She realized immediately after that she wanted to do the movie.
3.Jenna revealed that she met Michael Keaton for the first time when he was dressed up as Beetlejuice. "He came up behind me. I was getting a hair and makeup test, and I got a tap on the shoulder, and I turned around — and it was a jump scare, for sure," she told Jimmy Fallon. "He was like, 'Oh, hey, I'm Michael,' and he had... molds peeling off his face. I played it cool."
"It was cool, until I met him for a second time out of hair and makeup," she added, and "I introduced myself again because I forgot that I had already met him."
4.In the film, Charles Deetz, originally played by Jeffrey Jones, dies after a plane crash where he finds himself stranded in the ocean and gets bitten in half by a shark. Tim's real-life nightmare of dying inspired the stop-motion sequence. "The way Charles dies in that animated piece is Tim's nightmare of dying," screenwriter Alfred Gough said. "He literally pitched that: 'My nightmare is, I'm in a plane crash, I survive the plane crash, I almost drown, and then a shark eats me.'"
5.Jenna shared that working with Tim Burton on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was totally different from working on Wednesday with him. Now that they'd known each other and worked together, she found that he was "more playful" on set.
"Well, Wednesday we were just getting to know each other, and Tim's a pretty introverted guy. So, on Wednesday, we were just trying to get to know each other a bit," she explained. "And then on Beetlejuice, I think because he was working with so many of his old friends and he was revisiting a set and a character he really loved, he seemed a lot more playful. I think it actually helped our relationship a lot. He was very hands-on and dancing and singing and clapping behind the monitor. It was just a very joyous, happy shoot."
6.Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the film's screenwriters, worked alongside Tim on Wednesday, and one day after filming wrapped, Tim asked them to stop by for a chat. Both assumed something was wrong, but Tim actually asked them if they'd be willing to pen the sequel script.
7.For the scenes in the underworld, the actors all had to stand in a diagonal position because none of the floors are flat.
8.The film's chaotic third act is underscored by Richard Harris's seven-and-a-half-minute song "MacArthur Park." Tim was inspired by the song, which he heard playing on the jukebox in his kitchen, and decided that he wanted the entire song in the script.
"He called and said, 'I’ve been listening to this song, I’m obsessed with it. What if the whole third act is set to 'MacArthur Park?' And we said, 'Uh okay,'" said Miles. Alfred said, "You listen to that song and it’s seven-and-a-half minutes."
Since the song was so long, they'd even suggested taking part of it out, but Tim would always call asking them to put it back in. "It’s that bonkers," Miles said.
9.Jenna revealed that Justin Theroux was one of the hardest people to work with because he kept making her burst out laughing and break character.
"I think it was the first time I'd ever really broke down, genuinely, because of what he was doing. Every take was completely different and I just never knew what he was gonna do. His character is disgusting in the best way. I had to keep reminding myself that I was working as well because I just wanted to watch!" she said.
10.And Justin shared that Catherine O'Hara was the one that made him constantly break character.
"I was constantly laughing at her and there was a couple of scenes where, I literally couldn't — I should've put on a podcast and just not listen because I was ruining takes just laughing there," he said.
11.The movie takes place in the fictional town of Winter River, Connecticut, but was actually shot in the East Corinth section of Corinth, Vermont, the same location where the first film was shot. While they were back up there filming the sequel, fans would visit the set and show Jenna old photo albums with Tim's signature in them.
12.Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin did not return for the sequel. Tim Burton explained that in making this movie he "didn't want to just tick any boxes," and that this installment would focus on the three generations of Deetz women. "Even though they were such an amazing integral part of the first one, I was focusing on something else," he said.
"A sequel like this, it really had to do with the time," he added. "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."
In the movie, it's explained that Alec and Geena's characters found a loophole and could move on.
13.In creating the concept for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim wanted to start completely fresh, so he didn't rewatch the original movie or look at any potential sequel scripts written over the years.
"But we deliberately didn’t look at any previous versions," Miles said. "Tim wanted a clean slate, to take his ideas and come up with something that felt fresh. I think it’s important for a sequel that it has a reason to be." He guessed that there were about 15 different scripts written over the years.
14.Warner Brothers wanted to call the original movie Ghost House, but Tim fought to have it titled Beetlejuice. However, they brought back that title as the name of Lydia's ghost-hunting show.
15.Finally, fans have wondered about a third Beetlejuice movie, but so far the screenwriters don't believe Tim would want to do another one. "I don’t think Tim’s looking for a third one. It would always be about the right story and the right reasons for doing it," Miles said. "This has been an incredible ride to do this movie. At many points in this process, we were like, What are we doing? Why are we messing with an iconic movie? It really is great that people like the movie like they do. That’s a great thing to accomplish for everybody involved. Never say never, right?"
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in theaters now.
