Is there any new talk about the future of BEETLEJUICE?

[aces25]

Posted: 9/18/20 at 6:28pm

With The Music Man officially up on the boards at the Winter Garden, has there been any new speculation of Beetlejuice taking a new theatre? 

I think Beetlejuice would be ideal for a capture and streamed on Netflix. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 9/18/20 at 6:54pm

talk around here? LOL Of course there is. 

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=1123551

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/18/20 at 7:18pm

Biggest licensing roll out since Shrek. Beyond that? I suspect even the tour will be canned.

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 9/18/20 at 10:01pm

It will be exorcised outside of licensing, like it deserves to be. Ya know, the whole "being dead" thing. 

This will become another Addams Family- reviled by the NY critics, but a hit in schools all those years later.

[JuneJune]

Posted: 9/18/20 at 11:18pm

I'm going off of memory so this might not be 100% accurate, but I recall a few weeks ago, David Korins posted a picture of what looked like sketches of the Maitland house telling Beetlejuice fans that something exciting was coming on his instagram story. Not sure if he followed up about it yet.

Either a tour or production abroad is probably in the making, but with the current world situation I can't imagine it coming to fruition anytime soon, if at all.

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 1:57pm

Updated On: 9/13/21 at 01:57 PM

[TNick926]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 2:05pm

hearthemsing22 said: "JUST SAYING...until they bring something up about something else happening, why torture yourself by dwelling on what may or may not happen with the show? I have NEVER seen people be so obnoxious about a show closing."

Hmm....I have NEVER seen someone be so obnoxious about people being upset and sad that a show was closing...

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 2:05pm

f I were to venture a guess, I would say that the Broadway production will not be coming back in another theatre, there will be no filming of the Broadway production, and there will most likely be no national tour. This is a property that I can see being fast tracked for licensing for schools and community theatres.

[sparksatmidnight]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 5:10pm

Jordan Levinson said: "It will be exorcised outside of licensing, like it deserves to be. Ya know, the whole "being dead" thing.

This will become anotherAddams Family- reviled by the NY critics, but a hit in schools all those years later."

So they will also rewrite half the show like Addams Family?

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 5:20pm

sparksatmidnight said: "So they will also rewrite half the show like Addams Family?"

We can only hope... 

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 5:43pm

There will absolutely be revisions to cover theatres not having as much set and prop trickery as the Broadway cast did, and probably a different death for Adam and Barbara since trapdoors are a rarity.

[MattieIce2018]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 6:00pm

darquegk said: "There will absolutely be revisions to cover theatres not having as much set and prop trickery as the Broadway cast did, and probably a different death for Adam and Barbara since trapdoors are a rarity."

I could also see these rewrites happening if there ends up being a tour post-COVID. There’s no way they’d tour the show with the trapdoor/elevator.

[Lousy]

Posted: 9/20/20 at 11:32pm

Only their fans have seemed to keep the talk going. The cast and creative teams seemed to treat its closure with finality on social media around the time it happened. Time to move on I say.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 9/21/20 at 8:07am

This show is going to make money hand over fist with amateur licensing. I haven't seen this much consistent enthusiasm for a show among my students in a very long time.

I very much doubt the show will reopen on Broadway and none of us know for sure if the money is (or will still be) there for a national tour. Beetlejuice was not a cheap production to put on and the design is pretty integral to the show's success.

[Heather4]

Posted: 9/21/20 at 12:16pm

I've learned in general to "never say never." I do think that since a pro-shoot was never able to be completed (Alex Brightman confirmed on twitter weeks ago they were scheduled to do it in April but due to COVID it never took place) that at some point Warner Brothers will do what Nickelodeon did with Spongebob and have the original cast come back for a filmed live performance that would air on a different platform.  (A deal with Netflix for it could certainly happen.)  With the current situation the future for many shows on Broadway in general is fairly up in the air.  I enjoyed the show, and am a fan of it.  If nothing else it did get many younger people interested in theatre and as others said will do well with licensing and a potential West End transfer.

[itsjustmejonhotmailcom]

Posted: 9/21/20 at 12:58pm

How much of an appetite do we think Warner Brothers will have for Broadway after this? Of the 7 shows they've done, 6 have flopped. 

[jodi torres]

Posted: 9/21/20 at 1:45pm

I am waiting for this to appear on netflix :)

[DiscoCrows]

Posted: 9/21/20 at 1:52pm

itsjustmejonhotmailcom said: "How much of an appetite do we think Warner Brothers will have for Broadway after this? Of the 7 shows they've done, 6 have flopped."

It's not like these are all one-off's through, they have an entire theatre division so I don't particularly see them just dropping that entire division off the face of the earth and never touching Broadway again, especially if independent theatre investors are able to contribute a large bulk of the capitalization towards upcoming projects rather than just Warner Bros. alone. Not to mention, Beetlejuice on Broadway has definitely helped revive the franchise name as of late and even if it flopped financially, the show has really made a name for itself and I think if anything that may be a reason to keep trying with future properties. I can't remember how close CATCF got to recoupment, but in terms of name recognition alone Beetlejuice has outdone that show by a mile.

What else are they working on? What ever happened to DAVE at Arena Stage?

Updated On: 9/21/20 at 01:52 PM

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 10/2/20 at 10:52am

TNick926 said: "hearthemsing22 said: "JUST SAYING...until they bring something up about something else happening, why torture yourself by dwelling on what may or may not happen with the show? I have NEVER seen people be so obnoxious about a show closing."

Hmm....I have NEVER seen someone be so obnoxious about people being upset and sad that a show was closing..."

100%

 

[VotePeron]

Posted: 10/2/20 at 11:58am

Heather4 said: "I've learned in general to "never say never." I do think that since a pro-shoot was never able to be completed (Alex Brightman confirmed on twitter weeks ago they were scheduled to do it in April but due to COVID it never took place) that at some point Warner Brothers will do what Nickelodeon did with Spongebob and have the original cast come back for a filmed live performance that would air on a different platform. (A deal with Netflix for it could certainly happen.) "

To clarify, Alex was referring to the fact the show was never recorded for The Lincoln Center Archives, which are not pro-shots like Hamilton. These are 3 stationary cameras that film the show on one night and then are eventually released for private viewings at the Archives a few years later. The fact they didn't do a LCT archive performance in a year is...terrible producing.

[Jarethan]

Posted: 10/2/20 at 2:42pm

I can't recall...has there ever been a show that got this much weird attention.  I did not see BJ (hated the movie, so I figured there was no way),but I can't ever remember a flop getting the type of almost desperate attention that this has gotten.  I have to ask why is this?  A lot of shows that many people loved flopped and did not get this much attention.  To those who say that it had clearly turned itself around and was going to turn into a big hit if allowed to percolate longer, I say that this show would have continued to benefit from holiday periods, etc., but there was no indication that it was ever going to make back its investment.

So, why the constant returning to the topic?

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/2/20 at 3:12pm

The fact they didn't do a LCT archive performance in a year is...terrible producing.

The Lincoln Center Archives also didn’t film the original 1981 Broadway production of DREAMGIRLS. The archive they have was done in 1985 when the tour returned to Broadway and labeled a revival.  It doesn’t feature the original Broadway production as originally done but with actors moving the 5 light towers manually and with the new Act 2 opener that was added to the tour.  It’s a travesty Jennifer Holliday and the rest of the original Broadway cast AND its legendary staging wasn’t preserved.

Lucky we have the “It’s All Over”/“And I Am Telling You...” performed on the 1982 Tony Awards and that semi-decent quality camcorder bootleg.  

[JBroadway]

Posted: 10/2/20 at 3:18pm

@Jarethan

you're not imagining it, and actually there's a fairly clear-cut reason for it, and why it seems different from other cult-favorites that closed early.

It's because of the highly unusual circumstances surrounding its closing:

Beetlejuice was doing well at the box office, and had an avid fan base. It had a nearly-miraculous turnaround after it performed on the Tonys, and was at the height of its popularity - when it had the rug abruptly and unexpectedly pulled out from under them. The negotiations with the Shuberts and Scott Rudin went horribly against their favor, and the Shuberts made the highly unusual decision to retro-actively invoke their stop clause from Beetlejuice's early weeks of under-performing at the box office. And all of this happened because Music Man was such a sure-fire bet to rake in a ton of money for the Shuberts - it's rare that such a sure-fire hit comes along, and even rarer that they demand a specific theatre, and even rarer still that the current occupant of that theatre is still doing very well financially, and yet again, even MORE rare that the current occupant had previously been doing poorly enough to allow the landlord to invoke a stop clause. 

And when all of this combined with the show's avid fan-base, I think it's creates a sense of shock, frustration, and also potential hope: most of the time when a cult-hit closes, it's because they were flopping financially, so once it's closed, it's closed, and even the most passionate fans can understand that. But Beetlejuice was doing well enough that they could have POTENTIALLY moved to another theatre and continued playing. It was always a long-shot, but the fact that it was even a possibility is what has inspired the conversation to continue on and on. 

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 10/2/20 at 7:06pm

JBroadway said: "@Jarethan

you're not imagining it, and actually there'sa fairly clear-cut reason for it, and why it seems different from other cult-favorites that closed early.

It's because of the highly unusual circumstances surrounding its closing:

Beetlejuice was doing well at the box office, and had an avid fan base. It had a nearly-miraculous turnaround after it performed on the Tonys, and was at the height of its popularity -when it had the rugabruptly and unexpectedly pulled out from under them. The negotiations with the Shuberts and Scott Rudin went horribly against their favor, and the Shuberts made the highly unusual decision to retro-actively invoke their stop clause from Beetlejuice's early weeks of under-performing at the box office. And all of this happened because Music Man was such a sure-fire bet to rake in a ton of money for the Shuberts - it's rare that such a sure-fire hit comes along, and even rarer that they demand a specific theatre, and even rarer still that the current occupant of that theatre is still doing very well financially, and yet again, even MORE rare that the current occupant had previously been doing poorly enough to allow the landlord to invoke a stop clause.

And when all of this combined with the show's avid fan-base, I think it's creates a sense of shock, frustration, and also potential hope: most of the time when a cult-hit closes, it's because they were flopping financially, so once it's closed, it's closed, and even the most passionate fans can understand that.But Beetlejuice was doing well enough that they could have POTENTIALLY moved to another theatre and continued playing. It was always a long-shot, but the fact that it was even a possibility is what has inspired the conversation to continue on and on."

I understand all of this and have read what you wrote. HOWEVER, I do not think that justifies people being rude to The Music Man. Think about the people who made their Broadway debuts in Beetlejuice. There are also going to be people making their Broadway debuts in The Music Man. It's not just Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. How would you feel if you were going to make your Broadway debut but people wouldn't stop putting down your show? Or complaining about it? They already mentioned that there will be a tour and a potential West End production-why didn't the conversation end there? I miss a whole bunch of shows but am I dragging on the conversation? No. Because I want to look forward to new shows to be excited about (I've heard good things about Sing Street? I was looking forward to getting a ticket for that). It was a case of incredibly, INCREDIBLY poor timing when Beetlejuice saw a bump in ticket sales right after the stop clause was put into effect. It doesn't excuse the fact that people have got to stop pitting the shows against each other, and accept when a show is closed. It's enough. And please don't come for me and tell me to be quiet-I can have this opinion as much as anyone else can have an opinion without whining.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 10/3/20 at 11:48am

@hearthemsing22

I’m not sure if your post was all meant to be directed at me, or if you’re just making general statements about your opinions on the fandom. But in case you meant to direct this at me, let me just clarify:

I have no real horse in this race. I enjoyed Beetlejuice, and I think it’s a damn shame what happened to the production. But I do not consider myself a part of the “fandom,” and I agree with just about everything you said in your post. I don’t condone any nastiness that’s taken place. And I agree that any animosity toward Music Man is misplaced. I would even go so far as to say that much of the animosity toward Scott Rudin is misplaced (on this issue, at least). Ultimately it was the Shuberts that threw Beetlejuice under the bus.

The point of my last post was simply to explain how the unusual circumstances of the show’s closing might have impacted the quality and duration of the conversation around the show. I just think it’s a fascinating case, but I wasn’t trying to excuse or condone any bad behavior.