It was terrifying to do it again. I was nervous, says Keaton in Venice, where the film festival has just begun.
In the first "Beetlejuice", Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin played a couple who had moved into a haunted mansion in the countryside. They died in a car accident and returned as ghosts. When new owners moved in, the duo sought the help of the demon Betelgeuse to scare them off – but the demon had his own plans, not least since he had fallen in love with the daughter of the new owner family, played by Winona Ryder.
She is one of the actors who is also in the sequel. Now the family returns to bury their grandfather and sell the house. But Betelgeuse is revived and when he sees that his beloved is back, all chaos breaks out again.
Burton does it again
Tim Burton is behind the direction this time as well. And like Michael Keaton, he wanted to make a film with practical effects instead of modern special effects.
We decided a long time ago that if we were going to make a sequel, it would feel like all the effects were handmade. That's what's so exciting, especially when you've made a lot of films where you stand and look at a "green screen" and pretend it's something there, says Michael Keaton.
The demon Betelgeuse is vulgar and as non-politically correct as possible. The 38 years have not changed him.
Both Michael and I love the fact that he was politically incorrect then and he is politically incorrect now, says Tim Burton.
"Get the math"
When Burton and his lead actors meet the press in Venice, the now 66-year-old director says that he has become increasingly disillusioned with the film industry in recent years.
I realized that if I was going to make another film, it had to come from the heart and that I really felt like I wanted to do it. When you get older, things happen in life and somehow I lost touch with myself. So this film was a way for me to get my energy back, to come back to what I love to do.
There won't be a third one. Burton laughs and says:
Get the math. It took over 35 years between the first and second one. That means I would be over 100 when we do the third one. It might be possible considering how science is developing. But I don't think so.
The first film, "Beetlejuice", came out in 1988.
The main cast includes Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones, and Winona Ryder.
The film's budget was 13 million dollars, of which only one million was spent on visual effects.
"Beetlejuice 2" has its cinema premiere on September 6.
Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O'Hara reprise their roles, and the rest of the cast includes, among others, Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci, Justin Theroux, and Willem Dafoe.
