Beetlejuice Beetlejuice defies middling reviews in a stupendous opening weekend at the box office

Pallid reviews from critics have not stopped the ghost with the most from getting off to a rip-roaring start at the box office

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has scared up an impressive $145.4m (£110.6m) start at the box office.

Released on Friday (6 September), Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel to his 1988 cult comedy has tallied $145.4m (£110.9m) in its opening weekend, including $110m (£83.9m) domestically in the US, and $35.4m (£27m) from 69 international box office markets.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has come in at the high end of expectations, debuting at No 1 in 40 overseas countries. The UK led all overseas territories with $9.6m (£7.33m), followed by Mexico with $6.5m (£4.96m) and $2.6m (£1.98m) in Australia.

It has achieved the third-best opening weekend of the year, following behind Inside Out 2 and Ryan Reynolds irreverent superhero flick Deadpool & Wolverine.

The Michael Keaton-starrer is the second-highest domestic grossing September movie of all time, following behind the adaptation of Stephen King’s It, which opened with a staggering  $123m (£93.8m) in 2017.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sees Keaton’s ghoulish prankster joined by Winona Ryder and franchise newcomers Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, and Justin Theroux.

The film’s astonishing box office performance comes amid pallid reviews from critics largely unimpressed by the second instalment.

In a two-star review, The Independent’s Geoffrey Macnab writes: “There are wonderful gags and some enjoyably grotesque clowning from star Michael Keaton, while Burton’s visual inventiveness hasn’t deserted him. But his ability to tell a coherent story is very much in doubt.”

(Warner Bros)

Similarly, a review in Rolling Stone called the much-anticipated sequel simply “fine”.

“The return of the Ghost With the Most is anything but DOA — so why does this decent follow-up to the 1986 cult classic still feel like a letdown?” writes critic David Fear.

In the Los Angeles Times, one critic goes so far as to argue that the sequel should not have been greenlit by the studio.

“There’s something a bit bland and manufactured about this version,” the review reads. “It’s a busy, chaotic, mixed bag of recycled material that just leaves us wondering why we bothered summoning this project back from the dead in the first place.

Reviews in The Guardian and Empire magazine awarded the film a middling three stars, while The Telegraph gave it a paltry two stars in a review that deemed the sequel “nostalgia bait of the worst kind”.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has well and truly defied the critics, however, as evidenced by its strong box office performance and the mostly positive response from fans.