A 'Beetlejuice' Sequel is Really Happening, Winona Ryder Confirms
Who better than Beetlejuice to resurrect our collective youth?
During an appearance on Monday night’s Late Night with Seth Myers, Winona Ryder, who starred as goth teen Lydia Deetz in director Tim Burton’s supernatural horror-comedy Beetlejuice, said that a sequel to the beloved 1988 film is in development. (Watch the video above.)
“I think I can confirm it,” she told Myers, “because Tim Burton did this interview—like, it was very hush hush, top secret — and then he was doing some press for Big Eyes and he did an on-camera interview, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re doing it and Winona’s going to be in it.’” She also revealed that even 27 years later, she’s still asked to say the movie’s familiar ghost-summoning incantation “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!” for both young kids — and oddly, airport TSA agents.
Speaking with Yahoo Movies last December, Burton suggested that the film — if it got made — would be less of a direct sequel than a new story about Michael Keaton’s havoc-wreaking afterlife hustler.
“There’s a script now that I think is closer to what it could be, and I’m excited about it,” Burton said, referring to a screenplay by Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter author Seth Grahame-Smith. “I wouldn’t call it so much a sequel, but it’ll have some characters. It’s a bit too early to say, but it’s definitely something that’s on my radar and something I’d love to do.”
If a new film happened, it would join the likes of Ghostbusters and Tron as ‘80s films to get sequels decades after they were released, proving that in Hollywood, a good franchise never really dies.
