Although it wasn’t a perfect comedy, Beetlejuice was a lot of fun when it hit theaters, and really cemented Tim Burton’s directing career, taking him over to blockbuster territory with the 1989 Batman.
Burton and Michael Keaton also made a great tag-team match for both Beetlejuice and Batman ’89, and audiences would love to see Beetlejuice come back again.
If only it was as simple as yelling his name three times in a row. There have apparently been plans in the works to bring Beetle back, there was going to be a script called Beetlejuice In Love, and I also remembered hearing about a sequel called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Another Batman connection is the late Warren Skaaren, who wrote Beetlejuice and Burton’s Batman, was also working on the Beetlejuice In Love script before he passed away.
Now Movieline reports that Seth Grahame-Smith, creator of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is writing a Beetlejuice sequel, and he’s met with Burton and Keaton about it.
As Burton told MTV News, “I think [Keaton] would be willing to do it. He would have to be [in] it.”
And indeed, it would be great to see Keaton back again. Frankly, we don’t see him in movies as often as we should these days, and I think he was also up to play Burton’s Willie Wonka, which all due respect to Johnny Depp, would have been a good choice for Wonka as well.
Stating the obvious, Burton continued, “He was great as that character. I think it’s a great way to unleash your inner whatever. I bet you he would get right back into it. I’m finishing [Frankenweenie], and then I need to [revisit Beetlejuice 2].”
And as Smith said on Aint-It-Cool-News, Burton and Keaton told him, “If you come up with a story that’s worthy of us actually doing this for real and not something that’s about cashing in or forcing a reboot down someone’s throats, then we’ll think about it.”
Now, would audiences “get right back into it” if Burton and Keaton brought Beetlejuice back. We at TG sure think so. Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!
