Here on “Boardrooms and Blockbusters,” I’ll look at the newest big-budget movies from a business perspective, contextualizing what has come before so we can try to predict what’s next. Understanding this perspective will help consumers like you think like those in Hollywood’s boardrooms, the movers and shakers who decide which projects to pour bottomless cash into, and which to neglect, all in the name of profit.

However, Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which releases Sept. 6, is part of a group that defies Hollywood’s consistent standard of predictability for both viewers and board members. It’s quite inconsiderate, to be honest.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is a legacy sequel, a type of movie whose performance at the box office is as predictable as an election in a swing state. Legacy sequels are big-budget follow-ups to movies or franchises that were dormant for a long period of time. Hollywood has already seen a few of these releases this year, and their respective performances have been downright puzzling.

First up was Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” — the sequel to another legacy sequel, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021). Not only did this movie have the unenviable task of releasing on the date previously reserved for the strike-delayed “Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse,” it also carried the weight of being the full-blown return of the four original Ghostbusters, whose appearance in “Afterlife” (2021) was merely an extended cameo. It’s safe to say “Frozen Empire” didn’t work out.

In a crowded March release slate, “Frozen Empire” was outgrossed by Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two,” Universal’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” and Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” — for those keeping track, that’s two empire-centric pictures in one month. While “Frozen Empire”’s worldwide gross of about $200 million is certainly nothing to sneeze at, “Dune” and “Kung Fu Panda” are two of the biggest movies of the year — and “Frozen Empire” is decidedly not. While it wasn’t a flop, “Frozen Empire” was not an inspiring success, either.

So, what’s the problem? It could be the over-reliance on nostalgia. After an inundation of returning stars in franchises like Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Spider-Man, perhaps audiences are getting tired of studios trotting out their old-timers.

Warner Bros. and Universal’s “Twisters” certainly lends credibility to this theory. Despite the movie being a sequel to “Twister” (1996), you would never know it. Director Lee Isaac Chung primarily leaned into two things: being a disaster movie with 2024 levels of technology at its disposal and having Glen Powell under contract.

Powell is one of the biggest names in Hollywood right now, and the studio’s choice to focus almost exclusively on his flirtations with co-star Daisy Edgar-Jones rather than the legacy of the original movie paid off. “Twisters” outgrossed “Frozen Empire” by nearly $140 million and gave “Deadpool & Wolverine” a rival in the late summer box office.

Unfortunately, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” dismisses this theory out of hand. It’s a legacy sequel to another legacy sequel just like “Frozen Empire,” but it leaned into its aging stars even more heavily. Whereas the original Ghostbusters play supporting roles in “Frozen Empire,” Smith and Lawrence’s titular boys are still front and center at all times in “Ride or Die.” Stupefyingly, that movie outgrossed both “Twisters” and “Frozen Empire,” throwing any logical hypothesis about legacy sequels in the garbage.

This leads us back to “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which isn’t even the last major legacy sequel of the year — that distinction belongs to Paramount’s “Gladiator II,” coming in late November. What’s particularly interesting about the former movie, however, is that it seems to be borrowing from a best-of-both-worlds approach.

Sure, this movie is leaning hard into being a sequel to “Beetlejuice” (1988), and director Tim Burton brought back returning stars Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder to anchor this new entry. That said, Burton and the studio knew exactly what they were doing when they cast Jenna Ortega to star alongside them. 

Ortega’s breakout role in Netflix’s “Wednesday” has catapulted her into a rising stardom matched only by the likes of the aforementioned Powell.  Not only that, her performance on “Wednesday” — primarily directed by Burton — made her the newest scream queen of Hollywood. If there’s anyone to cast in a “Beetlejuice” sequel at this moment, it’s Ortega, who will bring younger viewers into the fandom in droves. This combination of old and new could make “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” the highest-grossing legacy sequel of 2024.

“Gladiator II” is a much weirder case, as it features some returning characters from the supporting cast, but not stars Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix (as far as we know). But this movie has the only returning face that actually counts — director Ridley Scott, and with a cast featuring stars like Pedro Pascal, Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, the absence of Crowe and Phoenix might not matter in the end.

However, as we’ve seen with the legacy sequels already released this year, there’s no real way to predict how these next ones will perform. “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) was a legacy sequel, and it’s now one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. So was “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (2023), which was one of last year’s biggest bombs, especially considering its mammoth budget. This means I must say something no boardroom ever wants to hear: I have no idea what comes next.

Sammy Bovitz is a sophomore writing about the business of film. His column, “Boardrooms and Blockbusters,” runs every other Thursday.