Your favorite bio-exorcist is back. That’s right, Betelgeuse (of course, pronounced “Beetlejuice” and once again played by Michael Keaton) has returned. And the first trailer for Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” reveals just what to expect from the long-anticipated sequel.
Along with Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara are back (Jeffrey Jones, who was arrested in 2002 for possession of child pornography, does not return). Jenna Ortega, who worked with Burton on the extremely popular Netflix series “Wednesday,” also stars as Ryder’s daughter Astrid Deetz. Additionally, Monica Bellucci plays Betelgeuse’s wife and Willem Dafoe is a ghost detective.
Burton had been working on a follow-up to 1988’s “Beetlejuice” since at least the early 1990s, when he hired Jonathan Gems, who had done uncredited work on “Batman” and would later write “Mars Attacks!” for Burton. That sequel, “Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian,” ultimately stalled in development hell. In 2011, the project restarted, with “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” writer Seth Grahame-Smith taking over scripting duties (Grahame-Smith has a story credit on the new movie). That too fizzled out, with Warner Bros. canceling the project around 2019.
By 2022, it was “on” again, with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment now a producer. By the following year, Burton and Keaton had agreed to return, with Ortega joining soon after and Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, creators of “Wednesday,” onboard to write. Danny Elfman also returned to write the score. Everything was coming up Beetlejuice. The final script was then submitted the day before the writers’ strike, with the film fully shutting down during the actors’ strike and returning for a few days at the end of last year once the strikes were resumed.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will hit theaters on September 6.
