In a bizarre twist of fate, it has been revealed that Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice sequel, which is now dominating movie theatres, almost went straight to streaming.

Tim Burton offered up an explanation for his casting choices after a number of his movies were called out for featuring predominantly white actors. Director and animator Burton has established himself as a high-profile name Hollywood thanks to releases like Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Sweeney Todd.

While Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is one of Warner Bros’ biggest theatrical success stories of the year, at over $264 million in worldwide grosses and counting, there was a period in the decade-plus the studio was mulling the sequel in which execs advocated for the film to go straight to streaming on Max.

Long before we got Beetlejuice 2 in the form of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton almost sent the ghost with the most to Hawaii.

Abdy and another executive supposedly met with Burton, and were able to convince him to reduce the budget to under $100 million. By sacrificing this $50 million, the director was able to convince them to fund a theatrical release for the film. With a budget of $99 million, it has already made $264 million at the time of writing.