Netflix just added one of last year's highest-performing films of the year, and certainly one of the most successful horror movies of 2024. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a sequel to the popular 1988 film directed by Tim Burton with Burton himself returning to direct the latest film.
Debuting in September of last year, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice wound up earning more than $451.9 million at the box office. In terms of other big movies released last year, ranking as the highest-grossing PG-13 movie of the year.
Although the Burton-directed sequel is a Warner Bros. movie, Netflix and the company have a licensing deal so Netflix usually gets Warner Bros. movies after they've been on Max for a while, such was also the case with last year's Dune: Part Two, which is also now on Netflix.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice stars Michael Keaton as the titular character and sees the return of Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz. Wednesday and Scream star Jenna Ortega joined the cast as Lydia's daughter, Astrid. Catherine O'Hara also came back to play Lydia's mother Delia.
The movie picks up in 2024 with Lydia hosting a paranormal talk show. She doesn't talk to her daughter much after Astrid's dad, but a family tragedy ushers the family back together and that's when Astrid finds a portal to the Afterlife. Not believing that her mom has a connection to the paranormal, Astrid isn't scared of summoning Betelgeuse, as she doesn't expect him to be real. But lo and behold, he returns for Lydia.
Apart from the returning cast, several new characters were added played by Monica Belluci, Justin Theroux, and Willem Dafoe.
Sometimes legacy sequels don't do a very good job at capitalizing on what made the original so great, but thankfully that's not the case here. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice wound up being absolutely delightful and it really echoes the quirky charms of the 1988 movie. This doesn't feel like a cheap nostalgic cash grab, you can tell the cast and filmmakers wanted to make a good movie and a worthy follow-up and they achieved that.
With the Beetlejuice sequel performing incredibly well at the box office, Warner Bros. is keen to get started on development for a third movie. Earlier this year, Warner Bros. execs Mike De Luca and Pam Adby revealed that development on a third film would start "imminently."
The company is also planning on developing new movies in the Gremlins and Matrix universes.