It’s been 36 years since Michael Keaton last amused and terrified the cinema world as the anarchist demon Betelgeuse. Now he is back.
Older, grayer, but no less anarchist, he appears in the sequel to the cult film, called “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”.
- It was terrifying to do it again. I was nervous, admits Keaton in Venice, where the film festival started on Wednesday and the Burton film opened the ball.
But the demon had his own plans, not least since he fell in love with the daughter of the new family, played by Winona Ryder. She is one of the actors who is also in the sequel.
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Now the family returns to bury grandfather – and sell the house. But Betelgeuse is brought back to life, and when he discovers that his beloved is back, the chaos starts again.
- We decided a long time ago that if we were going to make a sequel, we wanted it to feel like all the effects were handmade. That’s what’s so exciting, especially when you’ve made many films where you stand and look at a “green screen” and pretend there’s something there, says Michael Keaton.
The demon Betelguese is vulgar and as politically incorrect as it gets. The years that have passed have not changed him.
- Both Michael and I love the fact that he was politically incorrect then, and that he is politically incorrect now, says Tim Burton.
- I realized that if I was going to make another film, it had to come from the heart. That I really felt like I wanted to make it. When you get older, things happen in life, and somehow I lost touch with myself, says Burton.
There has long been talk of a “Beetlejuice” sequel, and Burton says that the project – and himself – got new energy from making the hit series “Wednesday” for Netflix. There he worked with the new queen of horror Jenna Ortega, who joined over to “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”.
- Meeting her was important for me.
- Calculate it yourself. It took more than 35 years between the first and second film. That means I would be over 100 by the time we do the third one. It might be possible considering how science is developing – but I don’t think so!
“Beetlejuice 2” has its Norwegian cinema premiere next week, September 6.
In the first round “Beetlejuice” from 1988, Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin played a couple who move into a crow castle in the countryside. They die in a car accident and come back as ghosts. When new owners moved in, the two enlisted the help of the demon Betelgeuse – who called himself a bio-exorcist – to scare them away.
Tim Burton wanted to make a film with “real” effects instead of modern special effects.
When Burton and his colleagues meet the press in Venice, the now 66-year-old director says that in recent years he has become increasingly disillusioned with the film industry.
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But there will hardly be a third “Beetlejuice” film.