Warning: spoilers ahead Beetlejuice BeetlejuiceMichael Keaton once again donned the striped suit of one of his most iconic characters Beetlejuice Beetlejuicewhich further explored the character's backstory without fully revealing his real name. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice several familiar frequent Tim Burton collaborators appear, and the story picks up with the Deetz family many years after the original ended. Keaton's mischievous poltergeist is back to cause significantly more chaos, and Beetlejuice has revealed more details about what made Beetlejuice.
One major detail that the original never touched on was the origin of Beetlejuice or Betelgeuse's name. Although he is known in popular culture as “Beetlejuice”, the original film has an alternate spelling in many cases. The 2024 sequel never reveals what his real name was in life, but it does reveal more about Beetlejuice's life before the events of the original, his death, and his afterlife. Beetlejuice.
Betelgeuse is technically the proper name of Michael Keaton's character Beetlejuice
His name is spelled like this
Michael Keaton's self-titled bio-exorcist is known in popular culture as “Beetlejuice,” but that's not the character's real name. As seen on Adam Maitland's model city tombstone, poltergeist real name “Betelgeuse” at the time of writing. This spelling is still pronounced as “Beetlejuice” and given the significance of the name, it makes sense to simplify the unique spelling.
Supposedly Warner Bros. hated the film's title and seriously considered several other options, including
House Nightmares
and Burton's sarcastic suggestion
Scared Sheetless
.
Alec Baldwin's Adam Maitland even mispronounces it at first, invalidating it as one of the three summoning notes from the afterlife. Simpler pronunciation, along with anglicized spelling, made the film more digestible for English-speaking audiences. From a marketing perspective, the spelling “Betelgeuse” can be phonetically pronounced in several ways, so simplifying it to the simpler, easier-to-pronounce “Beetlejuice” was a benefit, even if it wasn't actually correct.
'Betelgeuse' Is The Name Of The Brightest Star In The Night Sky – What It Means For Michael Keaton's Character
The name may still have a hidden meaning
per head Encyclopaedia BrittanicaBetelgeuse is a red supergiant star, the second brightest star in the famous constellation Orion. The name is itself derived from the Arabic term meaning “giant's shoulder”.It coincides with its position in the constellation Orion. From Earth's point of view, it is considered one of the brightest stars in the night sky. As a small but significant part of a larger whole, it has been theorized that it may hold a clue as to how and why the star actually got its name Betelgeuse.
The star Betelgeuse is part of a larger constellation, and so the thinking went As a ghost, Betelgeuse could therefore be part of a larger whole. Betelgeuse can be anything but the tip of the spear when it comes to supernatural chaos and its special brand of “bio-exorcism.” Beetlejuice Beetlejuice He didn't confirm that was the case, though to be fair, the sequel didn't delve into Betelgeuse's name as it was more concerned with his character – namely his vengeful ex-wife.
While Beetlejuice 2 doesn't reveal Betelgeuse's real name, it does reveal its history.
The 2024 sequel reveals who Betelgeuse was and how he died
One of the most entertaining series Beetlejuice Beetlejuice A study of Betelgeuse's history on Earth. As it turns out, Betelgeuse was a grave robber in the 14th century during the rampage of the Black Death, the bubonic plague that killed millions of Europeans. He met his wife while robbing bodies, and it turns out their marriage was short-lived; he actually married her to gain supernatural power and poisoned her on their wedding night to sacrifice her.
He revealed his plan to her ahead of time because the poison was slow enough for him to take his revenge and dismember her before he died. As opposed to traveling to the Great Beyond or being trapped as a ghost on Earth, Betelgeuse became a civil servant working in the Afterlife and Offworld bureaucracy before branching out to form his own independent bio-exorcism organization. Beetlejuice Beetelejuice It's never addressed what Betelgeuse's real name might be, but with the box office success of the sequel, it certainly seems possible to reveal it in the third film.
Source: Encyclopaedia Brittanica