15 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" That'll Make You Watch The Movie Differently

🚨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."

Warner Bros. /Courtesy Everett Collection

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.

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"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."

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.

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.

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.

10. And Justin shared that Catherine O'Hara was the one that made him constantly break character.

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.

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.

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.