The Cast Of Beetlejuice 2 Had To 'Rush' The Most Sentimental Part Of The Shoot
It's easy to take for granted just how radical the original "Beetlejuice" was. When Tim Burton made his now-classic paranormal comedy in 1988, he was responding to a decade of films that either had a music video polish and conservative bent (see: the collective works of producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer) or sought to recreate the success of Steven Spielberg's crowd-pleasers without the crucial ingredients that give them their artistic merit. "Beetlejuice," on the other hand, had none of that. Far from being saccharine or picture-perfect, it had a lo-fi hand-made quality and a fascination with the dead — painting the afterlife as neither something ethereal nor grotesque but as monotonous and tedious as the world of the living (and equally bizarre in its own morbid, off-putting way).
Beneath all its supernatural escapades and weirdness, "Beetlejuice" is also a straightforward tale of clashing cultures. The film pits a recently deceased married couple from the fictional small town of Winter River, Connecticut, against the Deetzes — a clan of eccentric, in-your-face New York City yuppies who have only just purchased their home — and the titular "bio-exorcist" (Michael Keaton), a chaotic specter hell-bent on taking advantage of the situation to serve his own purposes. What ensues is a farce that sends up the '80s zeitgeist, twisting and reshaping it through the funhouse mirror that is Burton's aberrant creative sensibility.
For his 2024 sequel, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," Burton will revisit Connecticut's countryside for more hijinks involving the B-man, this time centering on Astrid Deetz (Jenna Ortega), the teen daughter of the original movie's goth girl heroine Lydia (Winona Ryder). As you might imagine, returning to Winter River was a sentimental affair for Burton, albeit one that was affected by last year's dual actors' and writers' strikes.
'It was probably the happiest I had ever seen Tim on a set'
Ortega, who previously collaborated with Burton and "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar on the "Addams Family" series "Wednesday," shared her experience working on the sequel with Vanity Fair:
"They rebuilt Winter River, which was insane. All of the locals were so excited. But we were able to finish all of our Winter River stuff so that when the strike hit, they could take it all down. I remember it being super-weird energy on set the last week. For a lot of the cast that was revisiting Vermont, it felt weird to rush such a sentimental moment for them, seeing that house again and being together and calling each other by the same names again."
In spite of this, Ortega described the shoot as being like "a celebration of everyone being back together and doing practical effects again. It was probably the happiest I had ever seen Tim on a set, where he's clapping at the monitor and shouting and laughing, which was really, really endearing."
Much has been made of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" embracing the original film's practical-driven approach in interviews with the cast and crew (this one included). Meanwhile, Burton himself has talked about his frustration with modern franchises, expressing a desire to stir things up more with his output going forward. It's not hard to spot the parallels between where he's at now and his outlook near the end of the 1980s, which is certainly an encouraging sign. The "Beetlejuice" sequel itself still has a lot to prove — a follow-up to a 36-year-old movie doesn't exactly read as a surefire recipe for a Burton renaissance. But who knows: maybe this "sentimental" reunion will prove to be just what the doctor ordered.
"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" opens in theaters on September 6, 2024.