Michael Keaton in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star Michael Keaton says he had a certain condition that needed to be met for his character in the long-awaited sequel to the 1988 classic.
Director Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice sequel opens in theaters on September 6. Joining Keaton in his return as the “Ghost with the Most” are his original Beetlejuice castmates Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz and Catherine O’Hara as her stepmother Delia Deetz and Jenna Ortega as Lydia’s daughter, Astrid Deetz. The film also stars Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci and Justin Theroux.
According to GQ, Keaton’s zany bio-exorcist character had only 17 minutes of screen time in the original Beetlejuice. As such, Keaton’s unique condition for his character’s return for Beetlejuice 2 was that he had the same sort of reduced presence for the benefit of the film as a whole.
“The idea was, no, no, no, you can’t load it up with Beetlejuice, that’ll kill it,” Keaton told GQ. “I think the Beetlejuice character doesn’t drive the story as much as he did in the first one. He’s more part of the storyline in this one as opposed to the first one, which is a case of, this thing comes in and drives the movie a little bit.”
The logline for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reads, “After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.”
Keaton Also Wanted ‘Handmade’ Feel Of 1988’s ‘Beetlejuice’
Visual effects in the movie business have come a long way since the release of Beetlejuice in 1988 when the film effectively used such traditional means as puppets and stop-motion animation.
Tim Burton, after all, had previously directed the classic animated short Vincent and used stop-motion animation in his directorial debut Pee-wee’s Big Adventure—and later went on to write the story for and produce the stop-motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas, co-direct Corpse Bride and direct Frankenweenie.
In Beetlejuice, of course, some characters were brought to life via puppeteering while others—including the film’s giant striped sandworm—were shot via stop-motion animation.
Keaton not only wanted Burton to implement those traditional “handmade” sensibilities in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice but the film to have the same sort of visual aesthetic as the original as well. As such, CGI was not an option.
“When I say handmade, it’s literally handmade,” Keaton told GQ. “That’s really hard to do in 2024 … For the most part, [with CGI] I think a lot of audiences subconsciously feel farther away from what’s actually going on on the screen or in the story. It’ll work, they’ll accept it. But I think for a lot of movies, it’s not quite as enjoyable.”
Rated PG-13, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens in theaters nationwide on September 6.
