Thirty-six years after the release of the Tim Burton-directed classic Beetlejuice (watch it HERE), we’re finally going to be seeing a sequel when Beetlejuice 2 reaches theatres on September 6th… and as we watch the new film play out on the big screen, we’re apparently not going to be seeing much CGI in it. Star Jenna Ortega told Entertainment Tonight that working on Beetlejuice 2 was “some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a set. Visually, so exciting. Everything was practical. I think we’re not using very much CGI or something like that at all. Everyone did an incredible job. I felt so lucky to be there, it was insane … I can’t wait for people to see.“
Ortega’s comments actually echo something her co-star Michael Keaton – who reprises the role of the titular character – said seven months ago, when the film was still in production. He told Empire, “Beetlejuice is the most f-ckin’ fun you can have working. It’s so fun, it’s so great. And you know what it is? We’re doing it exactly like we did the first movie. There’s a woman in the great waiting room for the afterlife literally with a fishing line – I want people to know this because I love it – tugging on the tail of a cat to make it move.” He and Burton, who was back at the helm for the sequel, felt Beetlejuice 2 had to “be done as close to the way we made it the first time. Making stuff up, making stuff happen, improvising and riffing, but literally handmade stuff like people creating things with their hands and building something.” Because they took that approach, Keaton said the production was “the most fun I’ve had working on a movie in I can’t tell you how long.“
Burton also told The Independent about the approach they were taking to Beetlejuice 2: “On this last one, Beetlejuice 2, I really enjoyed it. I tried to strip everything and go back to the basics of working with good people and actors and puppets. It was kind of like going back to why I liked making movies.“
It’s good to know the production was so much fun for everybody, because Beetlejuice 2 was in development hell for decades. In 1990, Jonathan Gems was hired to write a sequel that was going to be titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Burton considered having Daniel Waters rewrite that script, Pamela Norris did rewrite it, and Warner Bros. offered Kevin Smith the chance to do another rewrite. He turned it down. Seth Grahame-Smith was hired to write and produce a new version of a sequel in 2011. Mike Vukadinovich was brought on to rewrite his script in 2017.
Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, co-creators and co-showrunners of Wednesday, have written the screenplay for Beetlejuice 2 that was actually filmed. Plot details are being kept under wraps. Brad Pitt’s Plan B is producing the sequel, which filmed in London before moving to Vermont and Massachusetts.
Winona Ryder reprises the role of Lydia Deetz in this sequel and is joined in the cast by Jenna Ortega as Lydia’s daughter; Catherine O’Hara, back as Lydia’s stepmother Delia; Monica Bellucci as Beetlejuice’s wife, Willem Dafoe as a law enforcement officer in the afterlife, and Justin Theroux in an unspecified role. Plus Keaton.
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