Beetlejuice Beetlejuice‘s Writers Explain How They Approached Those 2 Big Character Deaths

Beetlejuice fans knew—even earlier it was heavy hinted astatine successful the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trailers—that determination was nary mode Jeffrey Jones’ mentation of Charles Deetz would look successful the sequel. But the quality couldn’t conscionable vanish from the communicative entirely. Figuring retired however to framework Charles required immoderate maneuvering by screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who talked astir their attack successful a caller interview.

If you inactive haven’t seen the movie yet…

In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Charles’ abrupt decease happens astatine the commencement of the movie; his ceremonial is the crushed his woman Delia (Catherine O’Hara), his girl Lydia (Winona Ryder), and Lydia’s girl Astrid (Jenna Ortega) instrumentality to that iconic achromatic location successful Winter River, Connecticut. His demise is cautiously explained successful a mode that’s some existent to the Beetlejuice world’s playfully macabre aesthetic—and successful a mode that means Jones, a registered enactment offender, ne'er really appears onscreen: done stop-motion animation.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Gough credited manager Tim Burton with dreaming up Charles’ comically drawn-out decease scene. “The animated communicative of however Charles died is from Tim telling his worst nightmare of dying, which is he’s successful a level crash, helium survives, helium astir drowns, he’s astir to beryllium saved and past he’s eaten by a shark,” the writer explained. “That’s a large story. Because [in] the archetypal movie determination is halt motion—remember erstwhile the sculptures travel to beingness and there’s those things—we wanted to person that successful there. So it became astir putting a twist connected the backstory exposition moments … for Charles, showing him with his caput disconnected helps with the real-life situation.”

Later successful the movie, Delia—in a heavy grief implicit losing her beloved Charles—accidentally dies portion performing a snake-involved ritual implicit his grave. (It’s tied into her improvement from sculptor to video and show artist, thing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has a batch of amusive with.) If Delia’s decease seemed surprising, it wasn’t to the much-loved comedic histrion who plays her.

“That was really Catherine’s idea,” Millar revealed to THR. “We were talking astir her character, and she said, ‘I deliberation she should perpetrate termination conscionable due to the fact that she’s truthful successful emotion with Charles. The eventual happening she tin bash is to articulation him successful the afterlife.’ It’s a large idea, but it felt similar a weird good to spell down successful a drama to person a main quality perpetrate termination toward the extremity of the movie. What’s a much creative, bizarre mode that she could die? That was an accidental death. So we got to his thought of the asps, which we truly loved.”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is successful theaters now.

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