The Juice is loose, Baby! 

Back once again in his signature black-and-white stripes, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) – the trickster demon and shapeshifting bio-exorcist – finds a way back to the Deetz family (particularly Lydia, his one who got away), oozing his signature kind of dead(ly) charm, to create chaos, raise a ruckus, and otherwise just be his ghoulish and ghastly self, in the sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” directed by Tim Burton, with original cast members Keaton, Winona Ryder (Lydia Deetz) and Catherine O’Hara (Delia Deetz) joining newcomers Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Monica Belluci and Willem Dafoe.  

“It’s great when you see people that you haven’t seen for a while, and then you go back into it,” says Burton. “I didn’t realize it’s been like decades. You know, it felt like yesterday, and it’s quite amazing when that happens. It was great. Honestly, it was strangely emotional seeing them all together again. But that’s what made it a special thing.”

After the first movie, released in 1988, there was lots of talk about a sequel and different ideas were thrown out over the years, but nothing really clicked for Burton. “And so, all this time goes by, 35 years, and what really got me interested and excited is… life,” says the acclaimed director. “It’s like, what happened to the Deetz family? You know, it’s 35 years later, what happened to Lydia, this interesting teenager? And so you start to use your own life experience: you’re an interesting teenager. What happens when you become an adult? Do you have children? What are your relationships like? What have you become? Things happen to all of us as we get older and change – relationships, children – all those things. That was the nucleus of it for me that got me back interested in it – what happened to the Deetz family. It was quite emotional for me to revisit these characters.”

In “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,” three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River after an unexpected family tragedy. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid (Ortega), discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. 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 sequel’s screenplay is by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (“Wednesday”), story by Gough and Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith (“The LEGO® Batman Movie”), based on characters created by Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson.