It’s showtime again, baby. On September 5, Warner Bros. will finally release the long-gestating sequel to “Beetlejuice” after decades lingering in the Netherworld. Ahead of the film’s trailer release (stay tuned for that, likely tomorrow), Entertainment Weekly has provided two first-look stills from Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” The first image shows Michael Keaton back in his glory as the whitty con artist ghost, and another one with a funeral scene (mourning the death of patriarch Charles Deetz?) that features modern members of the Deetz family (played by Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder, and Justin Theroux) wearing quite fashion-focused goth outfits.
Keaton’s Beetlejuice is a huckster who tricked the original film’s recently undead protagonists (played by Gina Davis and Alec Baldwin) into scaring away the scorching Deetz family as they moved in. However, Beetlejuice, the ever-opportunist, tries to marry the young Lydia Deetz so he can return to the world of the living. He was thwarted in the end.
Burton cites the 36-year journey to make this sequel, as “Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian,” “Beetlejuice Goes West,” and “Beetlejuice & The Haunted Mansion” were among the many ideas considered at various points during the frustrating development process.
Burton told EW about the many versions considered: “We talked about lots of different things. That was early on when we were going, ‘Beetlejuice & The Haunted Mansion,’ ‘Beetlejuice Goes West,’ whatever. Lots of [ideas] came up.”
Ortega and Theroux aren’t the only newcomers, as Monica Bellucci (“Spectre”), Arthur Conti (“House of The Dragon”), and Willem Dafoe (“Poor Things”) are also among the cast.
During the cartoon spinoff, Beetlejuice’s persona pivoted into the best pal of Lydia and less of an antagonist as the two explored the Netherworld with their episodic adventures.
As mentioned above, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will materialize in theaters on September 5, and you can see those first-look images below. Meanwhile, Burton is set to reunite with Warner Bros. on a remake of the B-movie “Attack of The Fifty-Foot Woman,” which could arrive next.
