“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”, “Joker 2”, new “Venom” and the top films of the fall
USA TODAY film critic Brian Truitt tells us the must-see movies in fall 2024, including the new “Beetlejuice” and “Joker” films.
NEW YORK – Michael Keaton doesn’t like to think about things too much. But he has a theory about his new “Beetlejuice” co-star Jenna Ortega that he’d like to share.
For decades, he and director Tim Burton have been tinkering with a sequel to their popular 1980s horror hit “Beetlejuice.” Nothing felt right until Burton worked with Ortega on the Netflix series “Wednesday,” which is set for release in 2022.
“She literally didn’t exist,” Keaton recalled to Burton at a meeting at the chic Essex House in 1988. “She’s born, and you end up doing something with her. And then you think: Wait a minute. Her? It? If she’s gone, we might never do the thing.”
“We had to wait until you survived,” Catherine O’Hara interjects, making 21-year-old Ortega smile. “The balance of power in the room has shifted,” she jokes.
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When the “Beetlejuice” intelligence group meets to talk about the long-awaited sequel (in theaters Friday), it’s both a fun get-together and a therapy session. Keaton reveals, for example, that he went to Burton’s show at the Museum of Modern Art incognito and almost fell into some valuable pieces: “I was so afraid I would break something.” And Burton talks about his connection to Winona Ryder’s character Lydia Deetz and her development “from cool teenager to troubled adult. That made the whole film very personal and very important and emotional,” says the director.
The secret ingredient in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is not the return of Keaton’s mischievous titular trickster, but three generations of Deetz women. A death in the family leads to Lydia being reunited with her estranged daughter Astrid (Ortega) and her eccentric stepmother Delia (O’Hara). Of course, she has a reunion with Beetlejuice, as shenanigans are afoot in the afterlife, but Lydia must also rediscover the confident goth girl she once was to form an optimal connection with Astrid.
“I couldn’t have made this film in 1989,” says Burton, 66. “You only experience real life after the twists and turns you go through and the emotional baggage we all accumulate.”
Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega are closely connected as “Beetlejuice” mother and daughter
Ryder, 52, recalls the attic set from the first film, which returns in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” “I just love it up there. I always imagined Lydia living up in the attic and being like a happy old maid,” the actress says. Lydia being a mother is a fairly new concept for her: In a 2022 interview with USA TODAY promoting “Stranger Things,” Ryder thought kids were “the last thing she would want.”
Ortega still understands that today. “The problem with Lydia and Astrid is that they don’t really have a connection,” she says. And when Ryder thought about what had become of Lydia, “I didn’t imagine her pregnant or in love. But when I met Jenna, it was just magical.”
Ryder recalls a “sweet” moment between Lydia and Astrid in the attic. Then everything turns around and the mother yells at her daughter: “I don’t have any kids, so I was like, ‘This is too much.’ And (Burton) says, ‘Trust me.'”
“You didn’t take her very seriously,” says Burton. Ryder confesses, “I never thought you would have children,” and the father of two says with a serious expression, “No, neither do I. In fact, the tests aren’t finished yet.”
Michael Keaton is the “original Ken” and forever Beetlejuice
All this talk of emotional growth leads Keaton, 72, to want to talk about his character. “I think Beetlejuice has matured a lot”, he jokes.
He hasn’t really evolved, still spilling his guts – intestines on the floor and all – for cheap scares, and relying on trickery to get back together with Lydia. When making the first film, “we were always reluctant to show too much,” says Burton. “He’s a weird character who has to stay that way. You don’t want to know him.”
O’Hara sees “a vulnerability that wasn’t there before” because Beetlejuice’s resurrected, vengeful wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) wants to make him even more dead than he already is. The idea of Beetlejuice having an ex-wife “makes me laugh,” he says, just as “the phone dropped from my hand” when Pixar called him to voice Ken in “Toy Story 3.” (Because of the “Barbie” movie, Keaton now wants to have a T-shirt made that says “The Original Ken.”)
As a newcomer, playing alongside Keaton in “Juice” mode and other colorful afterlife denizens, “I was made to work very easily,” Ortega says. “It’s hard not to get immersed in the world when you have people with mold on their teeth and a guy trapped in a box full of water who keeps trying to give you a key.” She also got a sense of the undying love for “Beetlejuice” while filming in the same Vermont town where Burton shot the first movie: “People would come up to me and show me photo albums with Tim’s signature in them.”
Tim Burton’s sequel to “Beetlejuice” fans the flames of nostalgia
“Beetlejuice” never really faded from the public consciousness — a popular animated series and a Tony-nominated Broadway show helped, of course — but O’Hara, 70, sees a strong nostalgia factor. Fans whose parents let them see the film as children are now at the age “where you look back at those times in your life and remember them fondly,” she says.
For Keaton, the original film’s inherent strangeness is an essential part of its endearing charm.
“When you think about what it is, it’s so (expletive) crazy, but beautiful and crazy (with) the sensibility and the things it makes you talk about, like death and darkness and sandworms,” Keaton says. “The average guy from Minnesota or Kansas says, ‘Oh yeah, I love Beetlejuice.’ There are certain movies – of course people respond to this one. This one people like so much – what are we really tapping into?
“By the way, I don’t really analyze these things,” Keaton adds with a chuckle. “There’s just nothing to compare it to. Ever.”
