‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ hands Warner Bros. a lifeline

LOS ANGELES – Warner Bros. managed only a 4.7% share of domestic movie-ticket sales over the summer. By that measure, it was Warner’s worst performance since analysts started to compile seasonal box office data in 1982.

A haze of despair had settled over the studio by mid-August. Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio’s parent company, had announced yet another round of layoffs. Then it botched the renewal of a crucial television rights deal with the NBA, prompting investors to flee. Shares were trading in the $6 range, down 90% from March 2021.

So the horror comedy “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which arrived in theaters from Warner on Sept. 6, in some ways became a flash referendum on the studio’s future. Some people in Hollywood were starting to wonder aloud if there would even be one, at least without a merger with a competitor.

Talk about the undead: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” collected $111 million in its first weekend in North America, one of the best results on record for September. The PG-13 sequel, directed by Tim Burton, has now been No. 1 for two weeks in a row. It took in another $52 million over the weekend, for a 10-day domestic total of roughly $190 million.

Worldwide ticket sales will total about $264 million through Sunday, according to box office analysts. The film cost $99 million to make.

“Dancing in the hallways, smiles on faces,” said Michael De Luca, one of Warner’s top film executives. “There is really nothing better for morale than a hit.”

All of a sudden, the studio’s summer misfires, including “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “The Watchers,” were distant memories.

De Luca and Pamela Abdy became co-chairs of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group in June 2022. Because films take so long to make, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was the first big-budget project that came together entirely on their watch, from green light to release. The pair have several films coming up with ticket-selling promise, including a Broadway-esque musical sequel to “Joker,” a courtroom thriller from 94-year-old Clint Eastwood and a secretive original project from Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther”).

“We have a lot of work ahead of us, but I feel really excited about our lineup,” Abdy said.

De Luca, admired by Hollywood talent for his brashness, put it differently. “It’s a crapshoot,” he said of movie picking. “It always will be. I think that’s part of the excitement.”

The notion of doing a sequel to Burton’s “Beetlejuice” (1988) had kicked around Warner Bros. for more than a decade. But haggling over cost and distribution – for a time, the studio tried to push “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” toward the Max streaming service – had frustrated Burton and other members of the creative team.

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

At least on paper, the executives who preceded Abdy and De Luca had reason to be cautious. A sequel … to a 36-year-old film? Hmm. Also, Burton’s last big hit was in 2010, when “Alice in Wonderland” took in more than $1 billion worldwide. Since then, results had been soft. (The less said about Burton’s live-action “Dumbo” from 2019 the better.)

De Luca and Abdy wanted to rebuild the studio’s relationship with Burton. But the gross projected budget for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was roughly $147 million, in large part because of star salaries and producer fees. Too risky. Make it for less than $100 million, they said, and Warner would give it a major theatrical release.

Burton’s agent, Mike Simpson, started working the phones. Were any stars willing to join Burton and vastly reduce their upfront payment? In return, they would get a larger piece of the “back end,” Hollywood slang for the money that a film generates over its lifetime.

“Two months went by where every day the movie almost died,” said Simpson, a partner at the William Morris Endeavor agency.

During that time, Abdy and De Luca – against the advice of Warner’s business development department – began spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a week on preproduction. That way, when the deals were done, Burton could quickly start shooting, before losing stars to other commitments.

“That showed real guts, especially for two executives who were fairly new in their jobs,” Simpson said.

In the end, the principal cast (Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara) agreed to work for substantially less money upfront, as did Burton and some producers. Additional financial maneuvering (tax incentives, some cost cuts related to shooting) got “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” to the magic budget number.

The strong box office figures mean that those people will be cashing checks. And while one hit movie can’t turn around the fortunes of an entire company, certainly not one with problems as big as Warner Bros. Discovery, it can at least deliver a glimmer of hope.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.