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, directed by Tim Burton in only his second feature, following the modest success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure. It paired Michael Keaton's manic performance with Burton's emerging visual style, blending horror, comedy, and stop-motion sensibility into something distinct from the era's studio comedies. The film became a cult favorite and box office success, launching an animated series and cementing Burton's reputation for macabre whimsy. Its afterlife in home video and revival screenings has only deepened its standing as a defining piece of late-1980s genre filmmaking.
Harry the Hunter refers to one of the deceased occupants of the Deetzes' waiting room in the afterlife's bureaucratic underworld, a minor but memorable figure among the film's gallery of the dead. Collectors seek these fragments for their glimpse into Burton's crowded purgatory, where every extra carries a small, absurd backstory. A cell bearing this name likely comes from that sequence, a single frame preserved from the practical effects and makeup work that gave the film's supporting dead their strange, specific character.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm colour release print of Beetlejuice (1988).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds two full frames and portions of a third.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, evenly spaced; punched cleanly with no torn or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible along the bottom edge, appearing as a dual-track variable-area format with a white waveform pattern against a dark field.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer codes or key numbers.
Base & colour
Base appears with a slight warm-amber tint consistent with an acetate safety base; the dye image reads as a colour positive with no obvious red shift or significant fading.
Projection history
Light longitudinal scratches are visible running parallel to the film length, consistent with evidence of projection through a gate.
Picture
Positive colour image; frames appear to run consecutively as a single continuous shot; subject matter and visual style are consistent with a release print of Beetlejuice (1988).
Era check
The dual variable-area optical soundtrack, colour positive print on warm-tinted acetate base, and perforation style are all consistent with a theatrical release print from the late 1980s.
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 000063311
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
