Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice 2 won’t be able to avoid one significant change from the original horror-comedy, which could harm both the 2024 film’s box office and Burton’s commercial redemption. Arriving 36 years after the 1988 movie, Burton’s Beetlejuice 2 is scheduled for release on September 6, 2024, giving him his first big theatrical venture since 2019’s box office disappointment Dumbo. While Burton had a relative cold streak with his movies throughout the 2010s with box office or critical misfires, his reunion with original Beetlejuice actors Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara is slated to redeem these shortcomings. Following the success of his Netflix series Wednesday, Beetlejuice’s sequel should mark a long-awaited film comeback for the gothic master.
Seemingly doing away with his heavy CGI focus in the late 2000s and 2010s, Burton is returning to the basics with Beetlejuice 2. Michael Keaton has teased that Beetlejuice 2’s practical effects, ad-libbing, and fun set environment emulate how the original movie was made, which means the sequel is also apt to maintain many of the darker, more mature comedic aspects of the 1988 film. However, in keeping this crucial aspect of the original Beetlejuice in the 2024 sequel, Tim Burton’s movie will have to make a significant change that could harm its predicted box office prospects.
Beetlejuice 2 Will Need To Have A PG-13 Rating To Keep The Original’s Most Iconic Elements
One of the biggest things about Beetlejuice that still doesn’t make sense today is how the 1988 horror-comedy received a PG rating from the MPA. In addition to a notable F-bomb dropped by Michael Keaton’s titular ghost, Beetlejuice featured plenty of mature language, sexual innuendo, adult themes, and dark and macabre visuals. The MPA’s PG-13 rating had already been implemented four years prior, so it’s shocking that Beetlejuice was able to slide under the radar with a PG label. However, with 2023 movies like Barbie, M3GAN, and even Disney’s Haunted Mansion receiving PG-13 ratings, it seems inevitable that Tim Burton and Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice 2 will be hit with a more restrictive rating than PG.
Part of Beetlejuice’s long-lasting charm is how nonchalantly it deals with themes of death, sensuality, and crude humor and language, though in a way that children have been able to enjoy alongside their parents since 1988. However, Beetlejuice 2 isn’t apt to get away with this under a PG label. Just one F-bomb by Keaton’s Beetlejuice would warrant a PG-13 rating for Beetlejuice 2, not to mention the frequent discussions of suicide, gory ghosts with decapitated heads, and sexual content (such as a brothel) that pervaded the original movie. Many of these mature elements were crucial to Beetlejuice’s themes and popularity, so cutting them in the sequel just to get a PG rating is unlikely.
Tim Burton’s Recent PG-13 Movies Make Beetlejuice 2’s Rating Change A Box Office Risk
Though PG-13 movies like Barbie have survived the potentially damaging nature of a restricted audience pool at their box office, this may not be the case for Burton’s horror-oriented Beetlejuice sequel. Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), and Batman Returns (1992) managed to be impressive PG-13 hits at the box office and with critics for Burton, but his success under this rating has waned over the past 30 years. His more recent PG-13 movies such as Dark Shadows (2012), Big Eyes (2014), and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016) either failed with critics, underperformed at the box office, or both.
With the PG-13 rating being more off-putting for parents bringing kids to the theater, especially within the horror genre, Beetlejuice 2 could be subject to a relatively smaller box office haul than imagined. While Beetlejuice 2 is still projected to have a large box office gross and at least beat the $75 million haul of the 1988 original, a PG-13 rating could lead to the 2024 movie earning less than it may have under a PG label. Beetlejuice 2 will be far from a box office bomb, but a ratings change could hinder it from becoming the massive commercial redemption that Tim Burton needs.
Beetlejuice 2
Beetlejuice 2 is the sequel to the original Tim Burton classic that starred Michael Keaton and Wynona Rider in a horror-comedy that involved ghosts trying to scare off new homebuyers from taking their house. The sequel brings back Michael Keaton as the hilarious and sleazy ghost with selfish intentions, now joined by Jenna Ortega in a new role.
- Release Date
- September 6, 2024
- Director
- Tim Burton
- Cast
- Michael Keaton , Jenna Ortega , Winona Ryder , Monica Bellucci , Willem Dafoe , Justin Theroux , Catherine O’Hara
- Rating
- Not Yet Rated
- Genres
- Comedy , Supernatural
