(Bloomberg) -- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a sequel to the 1988 spooky comedy hit movie, brought in $111 million in ticket sales in its domestic opening this weekend, drawing in younger filmgoers as well as those nostalgic about the original picture.
The Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. film exceeded the company’s expectations — it had forecast $90 million in box-office receipts going into the weekend. The studio announced the final weekend total in an email Monday.
The new film features returning cast members Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara, as well as younger actors such as Wednesday star Jenna Ortega. Keaton plays a ghost who haunts a family in a fictional Connecticut town. Like the original, the new picture was directed by Tim Burton and features a whimsical take on the supernatural.
It was expected to appeal more to families than the typical Halloween horror fare, said Shawn Robbins, an analyst with Box Office Theory. Some fans of the earlier film came to theaters this week in costumes.
The showing is good news for cinemas still struggling to recover from the pandemic as well as strikes by actors and writers last year that limited film production. Despite hits such as Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, this year’s summer season has generated domestic ticket sales of about $3.67 billion, according to Comscore Inc. That’s 10% below last year and 15% below 2019.
Beetlejuice was the first film approved by Warner Bros.’ new management, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, when they took over the studio in 2022. The movie the helps kick off a fall season that will include Joker: Folie a Deux, also from Warner Bros., next month.
The studio promoted Beetlejuice heavily, with companies including Progressive Insurance and CarMax producing ads tied to the picture. Apparel, jewelry and other consumer products are also being marketed. And there’s a live experience in Los Angeles.
Jeffrey Goldstein, who leads domestic theatrical distribution at Warner Bros., said the company’s cable-TV networks lent a hand in the promotions, including a themed baking contest on the Food Network and a Discovery Channel spot featuring singing sharks.
The film “just sort of lends itself to this funny stuff,” Goldstein said in an interview. “There is life in the afterlife.”
--With assistance from Esha Dey.
(Updates box-office total in first paragraph.)
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