Warner Bros. Entertainment · The Geffen Film Company · Q65557474 · 92 min
Box office
$73.7M worldwide on a $15M budget
Honors
Academy Awards — 1 win, 1 nominationKids' Choice Award — 1 nominationAll 1 wins · 2 nominations on record
Academy Awards: Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Scholarship
Named in the title of 10 peer-reviewed works
Examples
Beetlejuice, 2006
Cosa Nostra #33 – BeetleJuice — Institutional Repository of the National University Open and Distance UNAD (Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia), 2024
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice may have problems – but it’s Tim Burton’s best film in years, 2024
Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Beetlejuice arrived from Warner Bros. in 1988, a Tim Burton production that turned a modest budget into a cultural touchstone through sheer visual invention. It cemented Burton's reputation as a director unafraid to blend the macabre with slapstick, and it introduced audiences to Michael Keaton's manic turn as the titular bio-exorcist, alongside Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as the recently deceased Maitlands. The film's success proved there was appetite for stories that treated the afterlife as a bureaucratic nuisance rather than a solemn mystery, paving the way for an animated series, merchandise, and eventually a stage musical.
This cell brings together the film's three central figures: Beetlejuice himself, the freelance ghost with the crude charm collectors prize for his sheer unpredictability, and Barbara and Adam Maitland, the ordinary couple whose deaths set the plot in motion. Their shared appearance points to a moment where the living arrangement between haunter and haunted comes into focus, a pivotal alignment in the story's structure. Pieces featuring all three are sought after precisely because they capture the film's core dynamic in a single frame of celluloid history.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Beetlejuice (1988).
Gauge
35mm; the strip holds three complete frames, with four perforations per frame visible on both edges.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges look cleanly cut with no torn or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible as a narrow band of modulated clear-and-dark lines running along one edge beside the picture area.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read any key numbers, manufacturer text, or SAFETY FILM legend.
Base & colour
The base shows a pale yellow-green tint consistent with a colour print stock; the dye image reads as warm with no obvious red shift or significant fading.
Projection history
Fine longitudinal lines consistent with projection wear are visible across the picture area; no splices or cue marks are seen.
Picture
Positive colour image; the three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single continuous shot, and the content is consistent with the theatrical feature on record.
Era check
A variable-area optical track alongside a colour positive on yellow-green base stock is consistent with a 1988 theatrical release print era, before DTS or SDDS formats existed.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000063310
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
