by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | 2024
Coming out some 36 years after the original Beetlejuice, Tim Burton's new sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn't exactly striking while the iron was hot. While the first film was a hit in the 80s, its reputation has only grown over the following decades, becoming a cult classic and Hot Topic staple.
For most of its life, the Cannon Group was a minor studio known for brawny B-movies like Death Wish, Cobra, Missing in Action, and Masters of the Universe. But during the 1980s, under the direction of co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who bought the company in 1979, Cannon also used some of its profits to take chances on risky auteur-driven projects in an attempt to gain some prestige. One such project was Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear, a deal Golan and Globus infamously made with Godard on a napkin at the Cannes Film Festival, where the pair were tenaciously courting filmmakers.