The Creator of Beetlejuice Had an Acclaimed but Tragically Short Life

After years of rumors and speculation, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the highly anticipated sequel to the 1988 original film, is finally hitting theaters this weekend. But will it live up to the much beloved first movie? Beetlejuice Beetlejuice certainly has its work cut out for it. For many fans, Beetlejuice is a horror-comedy classic that works perfectly as a standalone film.

So many pieces came together to make this movie work: its all-star cast, led by an iconic performance from Michael Keaton as the crude, titular character; that famous and instantly recognizable score by composer Danny Elfman; and the creative vision of director, Tim Burton. But there’s another hero behind Beetlejuice who often goes unsung: the film’s writer, Michael McDowell.

But who was Michael McDowell? With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice freshly in theaters, there’s no better time to dive into this writer’s life and find out.

How McDowell Became an Author and Early Successes

Born in 1950, Michael McDowell was an accomplished student, earning a B.A. and an M.A. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in English from Brandeis University. He pursued his passion for writing and, just one year after earning his Ph.D., became a published author with his first novel, The Amulet. Between 1979 and 1987, McDowell wrote numerous novels and short stories, including a novelization of the 1985 film Clue.

Although he dabbled in psychological thrillers, mysteries, and period pieces, McDowell was known for writing Southern Gothic horror. This interest in horror extended into McDowell’s hobby of collecting death memorabilia, which comprised over seventy-six boxes filled with items like death pins, photographs, and plaques from infant caskets. The Master of Horror himself, Stephen King, described McDowell as “the finest writer of paperback originals in America today.” He also wrote for a couple of TV shows like Amazing Stories and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Beetlejuice and McDowell’s Rise to Stardom

So how did “the ghost with the most” even come about? As the story goes, Michael McDowell, fellow screenwriter Larry Wilson, and entertainment attorney Michael Bender formed Pecos Productions. Beetlejuice was their first project.

The original script was much different and, given McDowell’s penchant for horror, much darker than what we eventually got. The Maitlands’ car crash is depicted violently, and Beetlejuice or Betelgeuse is a winged demon, who takes on the form of a small Middle Eastern man. He also wants to kill the Deetzes rather than frighten them and wants to sleep with Lydia rather than marry her.

McDowell and Wilson showed their script to a young filmmaker, who had directed an episode they’d written for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. A young, up-and-coming director by the name of Tim Burton. At that time, Burton was feeling discouraged by the lack of imagination in the scripts that he’d been receiving. But then he read Beetlejuice. This script packed all the originality that Burton had been looking for, though it wasn’t quite ready.

After McDowell and Wilson sold the script to the Geffen Company, writer Warren Skaaren was brought in to handle the rewrites. It was Skarren who shifted the story’s tone into a horror-comedy and toned down Betelgeuse’s most sinister behaviors. He also further developed the world of the afterlife and lightened the mood around the Maitlands’ deaths. Skaaren’s draft went through a few more revisions, until it became the story that we all know today.

From there, the rest is history. Beetlejuice became a commercial and critical success, earning both McDowell and Skaaren a Saturn Award nomination for Best Writing.

Continued Success Cut Short by Tragedy

After the success of Beetlejuice in 1988, McDowell shifted his focus from literary works to film and TV writing. He wrote episodes for various horror-related shows, such as Tales from the Crypt and Monsters. He contributed most to Tales from the Darkside, writing 11 episodes for the TV series and two different segments of the 1990 film adaptation.

One of McDowell’s most notable contributions was the 1993 stop-motion animated film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Tim Burton tapped McDowell to adapt his three-page poem about a skeleton who hijacks Christmas into a screenplay. Unfortunately, the pair experienced creative differences — or maybe this was a good thing.

These creative differences inspired Burton to make the film a musical and bring in Danny Elfman to compose the lyrics and songs, a move that undoubtedly turned The Nightmare Before Christmas into an enduring Disney classic. Caroline Thompson was eventually hired to pen the screenplay, though McDowell still earned the adaptation credit for the movie.

Just one year later, in 1994, McDowell was diagnosed with AIDS. After his diagnosis, he went on to teach screenwriting at Boston University and Tufts University while continuing to craft screenplays. McDowell’s life was cut tragically short on December 27, 1999, when he passed away from an AIDS-related illness. He was only 49. His partner of thirty years, theatre historian and director Laurence Senelick, remained with him until his untimely death.

Unfinished Works and Adaptations

McDowell’s final completed movie was 1996’s Thinner, which he adapted from the 1984 novel by Stephen King. His last novel, Candles Burning, was completed by fellow author Tabitha King, Stephen King’s wife. The book was published in 2006, several years after the writer’s death.

Ironically, one of McDowell’s final projects, which he was working on at the time of his death, was a sequel to Beetlejuice. It’s comforting to know that the film’s original writer actually wanted this Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sequel, or at least some version of it, to happen. Hopefully, Michael McDowell is watching the premiere somewhere in the afterlife, free of any sandworms and menacing ghosts.