Writing After the financial success of ''
Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Burton became a "bankable" director and began working on a script for Batman'' with
Sam Hamm. While Warner Bros. was willing to pay for the script's development, it was less willing to
green-light Batman. Burton had become disheartened by the lack of imagination and originality in the scripts he had been sent, particularly
Hot to Trot. Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson formed a partnership (Pecos Productions) with entertainment attorney Michael Bender, and
Beetlejuice was their first original project. After developing the story, McDowell and Wilson decided they would write the first draft of the screenplay together, while Wilson would only take 'Story By' credit, as well as his 'Producer' credit. Burton had gotten to know and worked with McDowell and Wilson (who co-wrote the script for "The Jar", an episode of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents that Burton directed). A reference to this remains: Barbara remarks that her arm feels frozen upon returning home as a ghost. Instead of possessing the Deetzes and forcing them to dance during dinner, the Maitlands cause a vine-patterned carpet to come to life and attack them by lashing them to their chairs. The character of Betelgeuse—envisioned in the first draft as a winged demon who takes on the form of a short man—is also intent on killing the Deetzes rather than scaring them and wants sex from Lydia instead of marriage. In this version of the script, Betelgeuse need only be exhumed from his grave to be summoned, after which he is free to wreak havoc; he can be summoned, but not controlled, by saying his name three times and wanders the world freely, tormenting different characters in different manifestations. In another version of the script, the film concludes with the Maitlands, Deetzes, and Otho conducting an exorcism ritual that destroys Betelgeuse, and the Maitlands transforming into miniature versions of themselves and moving into Adam's model of their home, which they refurbish to look like their house before the Deetzes moved in. Co-author and producer Larry Wilson has talked about the reaction to the first draft by a prominent executive at
Universal, where Wilson was employed at the time: Skaaren's rewrite shifted the film's tone, eliminating the graphic nature of the Maitlands' deaths and further developing the concept created by McDowell and Wilson that the
Afterlife is a complex bureaucracy. Skaaren's rewrite also added to McDowell and Wilson's depiction of the limbo that keeps Barbara and Adam trapped inside their home; in the original script, it takes the form of a massive void filled with giant clock gears that shred the fabric of time and space as they move. Skaaren had Barbara and Adam encounter different limbos every time they leave their home, including the "clock world" and the sandworm world, identified as
Saturn's moon
Titan. Skaaren also introduced the
leitmotif of music accompanying Barbara and Adam's ghostly hijinks, although his script specified
R&B tunes instead of
Harry Belafonte Casting Burton's original choice for Betelgeuse was
Sammy Davis Jr. The producers also considered
Dudley Moore and
Sam Kinison for the role, but Geffen suggested Michael Keaton. Burton was unfamiliar with Keaton's work, but was quickly convinced. Several actresses auditioned for the role of Lydia Deetz, including
Sarah Jessica Parker,
Brooke Shields,
Lori Loughlin,
Diane Lane,
Justine Bateman,
Molly Ringwald,
Juliette Lewis, and
Jennifer Connelly.
Alyssa Milano was the runner-up for the role. Burton cast Winona Ryder upon seeing her in
Lucas.
Anjelica Huston was originally cast as Delia Deetz but dropped out because of illness. O'Hara quickly signed on, while Burton claimed it took a lot of time to convince other cast members to sign, as "they didn't know what to think of the weird script". Burton also felt that O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones would make a "cute couple". Lydia Deetz was notably cast with the look and persona of the
Goth subculture.
Filming Beetlejuices budget was $15 million, with just $1 million given over to visual effects work. Considering the scale and scope of the effects, which included
stop motion, replacement animation, prosthetic makeup, puppetry and
blue screen, it was always Burton's intention to make the style similar to that of the
B movies he grew up with as a child. He said that he wanted to make the effects look cheap and purposely fake-looking. Burton wanted to hire
Anton Furst as production designer after being impressed with his work on
The Company of Wolves (1984) and
Full Metal Jacket (1987), but Furst was committed to
High Spirits, a choice he later regretted. He hired
Bo Welch, his future collaborator on
Edward Scissorhands and
Batman Returns. The
test screenings were met with positive feedback and prompted Burton to film an epilogue featuring Betelgeuse foolishly angering a witch doctor. Warner Bros. disliked the title
Beetlejuice and wanted to call the film
House Ghosts. As a joke, Burton suggested the name
Scared Sheetless and was horrified when the studio actually considered using it. While the setting is the fictional village of Winter River,
Connecticut, all outdoor scenes were filmed in East Corinth, a village in the
town of
Corinth, Vermont. Interiors were filmed at
The Culver Studios in
Culver City, California.
Principal photography took place from March 11 to June 11, 1987. Through his role as the production designer for Beetlejuice, Welch also became acquainted with film actress
Catherine O'Hara, who he later married.
Music The
Beetlejuice soundtrack, first released in 1988 on LP, CD, and cassette tape, features most of the film's score, written and arranged by
Danny Elfman. Geffen reissued the original 1988 soundtrack on vinyl in 2015, which was remastered and pressed to vinyl by
Waxwork Records in 2019 for the film's 30th anniversary. The soundtrack features two original recordings performed by
Harry Belafonte used in the film: "
Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" and "
Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)". Two other vintage Belafonte recordings that appear in the film are absent from the soundtrack: "Man Smart, Woman Smarter" and "Sweetheart from Venezuela". The soundtrack entered the
Billboard 200 albums chart the week ending June 25, 1988, at No. 145, peaking two weeks later at No. 118 and spending a total of six weeks on the chart. This was after the film had already fallen out of the top 10 and before the video release in October. "Day-O" received a fair amount of airplay at the time in support of the soundtrack. The complete score (with the Belafonte tracks included) was released in both the DVD and the Blu-ray as an isolated music track in the audio settings menu; this version of the audio track consists entirely of "clean" musical cues, uninterrupted by dialogue or sound effects. == Reception ==