Director Tim Burton describes the sequel to the Beetlejuice movie as ‘rushed,’ ‘chaotic,’ and ‘a lot of fun to make.’
Michael Keaton returns as Betelgeuse, joined by Winona Ryder reprising her role as the goth Lydia Deetz in *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice*.
Tim Burton described the experience of seeing Michael Keaton step onto his film set dressed as Beetlejuice, 36 years after filming the original, as feeling like “a time warp.”
In an interview with Sky News at the London premiere of the highly anticipated sequel to his cult classic, Burton shared that Keaton “didn’t rehearse anything” before filming. “He just shows up and starts doing it—all that demon possession—it was like going into a time warp!”
While Burton has directed many more critically acclaimed films since, such as *Edward Scissorhands* and *Batman,* his 1988 horror-comedy was so unique that it was the movie that truly put him on Hollywood’s radar.
Recapturing that early “art school irreverence” was even more crucial to Burton this time around, which is why he avoided using CGI.
“We filmed it quickly… all the actors contributed by improvising daily, which is challenging when you’re working with practical effects.”
“It was rushed and chaotic, but that made it a lot of fun to create. It captured the spirit of the first movie. While it won’t win any awards for special effects, doing it this way was essential to its DNA.”
Winona Ryder returns as the goth heroine Lydia Deetz, but this time, her character is a mother with a daughter, played by actress Jenna Ortega.
The young star shared with Sky News that she’s a big fan of the original movie and confessed that filming the fan-favorite scenes, where she gets to lip-sync songs similar to those in the 1988 film, was “absolute chaos.”
“We were constantly making each other laugh, there was a lot of creativity and collaboration, and as an actor, it was incredibly inspiring.”
So, why make the Beetlejuice sequel now, and what’s different this time?
As Burton explains: “People keep asking how he’s changed, and I just laugh—he hasn’t changed at all!”
“You couldn’t make this film in 1989. The focus had to shift to Lydia and what happens when you go from being a cool teenager to a messed-up adult. Relationships, children—because we all change over time; you don’t stay a cool teenager forever.”
Burton, regarded as one of the coolest and most imaginative filmmakers in modern cinema, disagrees with that label for himself.
“I was not a cool teenager,” he laughed.
*Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* is set to release in the UK on 6 September.
