It’s been 36 years since Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice first came to movie theaters. Released in 1988, the film cost $13m but made over $73m, and wound up being one of 1988’s highest grossing films, right up there with Rain Main and Big. It launched Burton’s career, as well as that Winona Ryder, won an Oscar (for makeup) and is still celebrated by its many fans, who regularly attend screenings dressed as the main character himself. It even inspired its own cartoon series, a long-running show at Universal Studios theme parks, a range of action figures and a musical adaptation that was on Broadway and spun off as a touring production.
The sequel!
The highly anticipated sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, has finally seen the light of day, with its release this week. So, of course, there are suddenly interviews up the ying yang with the people involved in the new film.
The Rider rider
Winona Rider was 15 when Beetlejuice was being filmed, and 16 by the time the movie was released. She had been having hush-hush meetings with Burton for years about the possibility of a sequel. In fact, before she agreed to play Joyce Byers on Netflix Stranger Things series, she had a “Rider rider” included in her contract that said if and when filming for the Beetlejuice sequel were to come up, the Duffer Brothers would allow her to temporarily leave filming so she could reprise her role as Lydia.
Rider & the TSA
One story that Rider recently told interviewers on eTalk CTV was how the TSA would delay her until she’d say the name of Michael Keaton’s character name three times:
I have missed flights because the TSA people wouldn’t let me through unless I said [Beetlejuice] three times! […] But I would do it and then be like ‘Do it again!’ It became a thing and I was like, ‘Please, I’m late!’
Here’s the video:
For REAL?
A few people (particularly one who claimed to work for the TSA) suggested that Rider may have been exaggerating the story and making the details seem to be more than they actually were. Who knows for sure? But it’s a fun story.
Feature Image: Karon Liu / flickr / CC BY 2.0
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