Movies of 1988 Bracket Game: Heathers Vs. Beetlejuice

https://lebeauleblog.com/2018/01/06/movies-of-1988-bracket-game-heathers-vs-beetlejuice/

Beetlejuice began with a very dark, violent script. Tim Burton became attached when he was developing Batman for Warner Brothers. Believe it or not, the studio wasn’t sold on making a superhero movie so they encouraged Burton to work on something else while rewrites were underway. Burton didn’t like most of the scripts the studio showed him, but he decided he could do something with Beetlejuice. The script was rewritten to downplay the graphic nature of the original and introducing more comedic elements showing the afterlife as a bureaucracy.

The title character was originally written as a murderous Middle Eastern man of short stature. Burton wanted to go in a different direction. He envisioned Sammy Davis Jr. in the role. And the urging of producer David Geffen, Burton met with Michael Keaton for the first time. He was quickly convinced that he had found his Beetlejuice and a fruitful collaboration was born. Ryder was cast after Burton saw her as the tom boy in Lucas. Catherine O’Hara was immediately interested, but the rest of the cast took some convincing based on the weird, hyper-violent script.

Ultimately, Beetlejuice opened to positive reviews and solid box office. It opened at the top spot and ended up earning enough to place as the 10th highest-grossing movie of the year. In the three decades since, Beetlejuice has retained enough cultural relevance that Burton, Keaton and Ryder are still talking about a possible sequel.

Heathers was a small movie. It’s budget was around $3 million dollars and it grossed just over a third of that. As the 167th highest grossing movie of 1988, it is easily the lowest-grossing movie in this game. And yet, even more than Beetlejuice, Heathers is the movie that made Winona Ryder a star (and Christian Slater as well). Even though almost no one saw Heathers in theaters when it was released in 1988, the few people who did see it could not stop talking about it. The positive word of mouth made the movie a must-see on video. It has inspired countless clones from Jawbreaker to Mean Girls.

Writer Daniel Waters intended for Heathers to be a much bigger movie than it actually was. He saw it as a three-hour epic directed by none other than Stanley Kubrick. He eventually set his sights a little lower and gave his script to novice director Michael Lehmann. He took the script to Denise Di Novi who was a new executive at the independent studio, New World. Heathers launched all of their careers. Di Novi went on to head Tim Burton Productions while Waters and Lehman reunited for Hudson Hawk.

What made Heathers such an influential movie was Waters’ ear for zippy dialogue. The characters speak in a made-up slang which made Heathers one of the most quotable comedies of all times. Unfortunately, most of the best quotes aren’t suitable for a family site like this.

Which dark comedy still tickles your funny bone?