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 and already showing the visual imagination that would define his career. Blending horror, comedy, and afterlife bureaucracy, the film became a commercial and critical success, later spawning an animated series and a Broadway musical. Its irreverent tone and Michael Keaton's manic performance as the title character helped cement it as a staple of late-80s cult cinema.
This cell, Dante's Inferno Room, draws its name directly from the film's darkly comic vision of the afterlife, a place where torment is rendered with the same absurdist humor found throughout Burton's work. Betelgeuse, the trickster spirit at the story's center, remains one of the most collected characters from the era, prized for his chaotic charm and instantly recognizable design. A 35mm cell bearing his likeness in this named setting represents a physical artifact from the film's production, a single frame preserved from the larger animated or matte sequence built to evoke that infernal atmosphere.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm analog optical release print of Beetlejuice (1988).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three complete frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, evenly spaced; punched edges appear clean with no visible tearing or distortion.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical soundtrack track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area, appearing as a single-track analog optical stripe.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read key numbers or stock codes clearly.
Base & colour
Base appears with a warm-amber tint typical of processed color print stock; dye image shows rich, saturated color with no visible fading.
Projection history
No splices, cue marks, or prominent scratches are visible in this capture.
Picture
Positive color image; all three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single continuous shot, consistent with a release print of Beetlejuice (1988).
Era check
The single variable-area analog optical soundtrack, warm print base, and color dye saturation 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 000063325
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
