Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has taken the box office by storm, and after so many years of wondering whether or not a sequel would even happen, it’s not hard to see why. But as much as audiences have enjoyed the movie, there has been quite a bit of confusion surrounding the ending. Where the original Beetlejuice had a pretty simplistic ending, with little to decipher or decode, the sequel leaves off on a cliffhanger of sorts. You’re not entirely sure what’s going on, or if it’s even real at all. It’s a classic movie trick, and one that ultimately fits within Betlegeuse’s (Michael Keaton) trickster aesthetic, but what the heck does it mean? That’s the question audiences have been asking, and finally, we have some answers.

How Does ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ End?
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

After yet again dodging a wedding to the Ghost with the Most, Lydia (Winona Ryder) and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) set out to repair their relationship going forward. We learn in the beginning of the film that they have a very complicated and estranged relationship due to Astrid believing Lydia is a fraud and isn’t actually able to see ghosts, since she’s unable to see Astrid’s father who passed away years prior. Obviously, we the audience know that Lydia really can see ghosts, as proven by her connection to Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) from the first movie. Eventually, Astrid learns she has the same ability, and that, coupled with briefly reuniting with her dad in the afterlife, allows her to forgive her mom and set out to repair their relationship. So after Lydia vanquishes Betelgeuse yet again, we get a pleasant montage of her and Astrid going on a trip. It’s the same trip Astrid said that she had planned to go on with her father, but that they never got to do due to his untimely death.

On this trip, Astrid meets a boy, and the next shot is the pair getting married, followed shortly thereafter by Astrid in a very sterile-looking hospital room giving birth to their first child. However, if you were paying attention to the score you’d notice the Carrie theme playing over the scene, which could only spell trouble. Oh, and hint that this is a dream sequence. Astrid gives birth to a baby Betelgeuse, who promptly kills the doctors before crawling up the walls to get to Astrid. This is when Lydia wakes up from her nightmare, only to find Betelgeuse in bed next to her. But don’t worry, she wakes up again, this time alone, much to her relief, and then the credits roll, and it’s a wrap on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Dream sequences are not uncommon for movies, especially ones within the horror genre like Beetlejuice. Carrie, for instance, ends with a dream sequence, as does Friday the 13th. But at least with those dream sequences, they made a little bit of sense, and you can make something of them. Of course, Sue (Amy Irving) is going to dream of Carrie (Sissy Spacek) after the massacre at the prom. And of course, a traumatized Alice (Adrienne King) is going to dream of zombie Jason Voorhees dragging her underwater after narrowly escaping Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer). But Lydia’s dream doesn’t make much sense, or any at all really. Luckily, the film’s writers have broken their silence and shed some light on what the ending means.

What Does the End of ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Mean?

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk all things Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and in the interview shed some light on the film’s final moments. Gough was the one who led the explanation, explaining that it was director Tim Burton’s idea to throw in an end-of-movie curveball.

“We didn’t want the movie to feel like it got wrapped up in a bow, so we had the idea with Tim of Lydia giving up on her show and she and Astrid go off on this trip that she was going to take with her dad. It was Tim’s idea to do this sequence and make it look like she gets married and everything is going great — and then she has this Betelgeuse baby and you realize it’s a dream. It was the end-of-the-movie curveball, so you realize nothing in this world ever gets wrapped up in a bow.”

Millar piped in afterward and spoke specifically of the hospital scene, namely the Betelgeuse baby.

“That was the last scene we wrote before the strike. We initially turned that scene in the hospital hours before the strike was called. It was the last thing we wrote for the movie at all. It just felt bonkers and inspired to have it seem like it’d be this nice, warm, cuddly feeling and then the Betelgeuse baby comes back and it’s too perfect.”

While it’s not a perfect explanation, and it doesn’t answer every question, it does at least shed some light on the film’s final moments, and it does feel in line with both the sequel and the original film. After all, as the sequel proved, you can’t keep Betelgeuse down, and as Gough and Millar said, the final sequence was meant to show that nothing in the world of Beetlejuice can ever truly be tied up into a neat bow. That doesn’t necessarily mean a sequel seed has been planted though. When asked about a third movie, Tim Burton seemed less than convinced, referencing the 36-year gap between the original film and the sequel by saying, “Well, if the same time frame goes on, I’ll be about 100. So maybe. I doubt it.” But that may actually be for the best, because if we keep in theme with the title a third film would have to harbor the forbidden title of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and then we’d really be in trouble.

Still, there are many ways the ending of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice can be interpreted, as it’s left fairly open-ended. But it’s interesting to get a glimpse inside the screenwriter’s heads and see what their thought process was as they were writing the film’s final moments.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is currently in theaters in the U.S.

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