Main Cast Then and Now
The original 1988 film featured Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, Alec Baldwin as Delia Deetz, and Geena Davis as Lydia Deetz. Keaton later starred in Birdman and Dracula: Dead and Loving It, while Baldwin appeared in The Hunt for Red October and became a recurring host on 30 Rock. Davis won an Oscar for The Accidental Tourist and later served as a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The film was produced by The Geffen Film Company and distributed by Warner Bros., with a worldwide gross of approximately $73.7 million against a $15 million budget, according to Warner Bros. official data and box office tracking sources. For current financial details on Warner Bros. Discovery, see the latest SEC filings here.
In the 2024 sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Keaton, Baldwin, and Davis reprised their roles alongside new cast members including Jenna Ortega as Lydia and Winona Ryder as Lydia's mother. Ortega rose to prominence through Netflix's Stranger Things and later starred in Miller's Girl, while Ryder returned to film work after a long hiatus and appeared in the 2023 series Yellowjackets. The sequel was directed by Tim Burton and produced by Plan B Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures, with a reported global opening weekend gross of over $110 million, according to industry tracking reports and studio disclosures. For background on Plan B Entertainment's production slate, see the company profile here.
Supporting Cast Then and Now
Key Supporting Roles and Current Status
Supporting roles in the original film included Catherine O'Hara as Delia, Glenn Shadix as Otho, and Patrice Martinez as Barbara. O'Hara later won acclaim for Best in Show and Schitt's Creek, while Shadix continued acting in film and television until his death in 2018. Martinez appeared in multiple films and TV series before shifting focus away from mainstream Hollywood projects. The original film's special effects were supervised by Academy Award-winning makeup artist Ve Neill, whose work helped define the movie's distinctive ghostly aesthetic and influenced later fantasy and horror productions.
The sequel expanded the supporting cast with actors such as Justin Theroux as a new character and Willem Dafoe in a cameo role. Theroux has built a career across independent films and prestige television, including work on The White Lotus, while Dafoe remains one of the most recognized character actors in Hollywood with recent roles in Kinds of Kindness and Nosferatu. Both films were shot using industry-standard digital cinema cameras and post-production workflows typical of major studio releases, with visual effects handled by teams aligned with modern VFX pipelines used in comparable fantasy-comedy productions. For an overview of current VFX industry standards, see the analysis here.
Box Office, Awards, and Legacy
Financial Performance and Industry Recognition
The original Beetlejuice earned a PG-13 rating from the MPAA and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup, winning the award. It later