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 in 1988 from Warner Bros., a Tim Burton production that mixed haunted house comedy with unruly practical effects and a career-defining turn from Michael Keaton. It became a sleeper hit, spun into an animated series, and eventually a Broadway musical, cementing its place as one of the era's most quotable studio oddities. The film's blend of the macabre and the manic helped redefine what a mainstream ghost story could look like, and it remains a touchstone for collectors of late-80s genre filmmaking.
This cell centers on Betelgeuse, also spelled Beetlejuice, the trickster spirit played by Michael Keaton whose name alone functions as incantation within the story. Collectors seek frames of this character because the performance is the film's engine, chaotic, theatrical, instantly recognizable even in a single strip of celluloid. A 35mm cell like this one captures a fragment of that presence, a physical remnant from the actual print struck for theaters, tying the viewer directly to the character's first run through cinemas rather than a later reproduction.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm colour optical release print of Beetlejuice (1988).
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame visible on both edges; the strip holds three complete frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, cleanly punched with no torn or deformed holes visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along the bottom edge beside the perforations, appearing as a dual bilateral variable-area stripe.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read any key numbers or manufacturer text.
Base & colour
The base shows a warm cream-yellow tint consistent with an acetate safety base; the dye image reads with strong blue and amber tones, no obvious fading or red shift.
Projection history
Light vertical scratching is visible across the frame area, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single shot, consistent with a release print of Beetlejuice (1988).
Era check
The dual bilateral variable-area optical soundtrack, acetate base tint, and colour dye image are all consistent with a 35mm 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 000063315
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
