‘The Juice Is Loose’: Michael Keaton, Jenna Ortega Resurrect ‘Beetlejuice’ in Tim Burton Sequel
The sequel to Tim Burton’s iconic Beetlejuice is almost here.
On Thursday, Warner Bros. Pictures shared the first teaser trailer for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the 36-years-in-the-making sequel of the iconic Tim Burton movie, due on Sept. 4.
The minute-long teaser sees Jenna Ortega riding her bike to school and later attending a funeral alongside Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara, who reprise their roles as Lydia and Delia Deetz.
The trailer fast-forwards to Ortega going into an attic to find a model of the town before the Afterlife is opened to see Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice. And, of course, his first words to Lydia after 36 years are: “The juice is loose.”
“After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened,” reads a logline of the film. “With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.”
The film is also set to star Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti, and Willem Dafoe.
In a recent interview with People, Keaton teased the Beetlejuice sequel, calling the experience “the most fun I’ve had on set in a long time.”
“On one hand, you’d go, ‘Well, of course it’s the most fun. It looks like fun,’” Keaton said. “As you know, it doesn’t always work like that.”
The actor explained that he and Burton had considered a sequel for years. “We thought, ‘You got to get this right. Otherwise, just don’t do it. Let’s just go on with our lives and do other things,’” Keaton said. “So I was hesitant and cautious, and he was probably equally as hesitant and cautious over all these years. Once we got there, I said, ‘Okay, let’s just go for it. Let’s just see if we can do it, if we can pull this off.’”
One of the main creative decisions, according to Keaton, was not to rely on CGI to create the fantastical world and creatures of the original, since they preferred to make it “feel handmade.” “It’s the most exciting thing,” he said. “When you get to do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending somebody’s across the way from you, this is just enormous fun.”