Why Tim Burton Cut ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Budget by Nearly $50M

A New York Times story profiling the huge financial success of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice revealed that director Tim Burton drastically slashed the sequel’s budget shortly before filming began.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice producers and Warner Bros. executives Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy told the outlet that Burton agreed to reduce the film’s budget by $48 million in order to secure an exclusive theatrical release. While the film was ultimately produced for $99 million, its original budget hovered around $147 million largely due to the salaries of its stars and producers. At that point, the movie was being developed for a straight-to-streaming release on Max (formerly HBO Max).

“That was never going to work for Tim,” Abdy said of the streaming premiere. “You’re talking about a visionary artist whose films demand to be seen on a big screen.”

The problem was that Burton hadn’t had a substantial critical hit in a decade, since 2014’s Big Eyes , and he hadn’t found financial success since 2010, when Alice in Wonderland grossed over $1 billion globally. Burton’s most recent film, his live-action Dumbo remake, fared disastrously with critics, ticket buyers, and even its own stars .

Abdy and De Luca told Burton that if he could make the film for under $100 million before advertising costs, they would greenlight Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and ensure a theatrical release. The director was able to lower the budget to a prospective $99 million, but that was largely contingent on the stars and producers taking drastically reduced paydays.

“Two months went by where every day the movie almost died,” Burton’s manager, Mike Simpson, told NYT .

As Burton and Simpson tried to convince the all-star cast to sign on, De Luca and Abdy were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each week on pre-production against the advice of their Warner Bros. peers. But when the cast eventually did sign on, that meant the film could immediately commence shooting.

Ultimately, Burton and “some producers,” along with stars Michael Keaton , Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, and Jenna Ortega all agreed to reduce their up-front fees for a larger portion of the film’s “back end,” or lifetime profits. The gamble seems to have worked out for everyone involved. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has grossed $264 million worldwide in its first week and a half of release, and seems poised to surpass the $500 million mark.