Seth Grahame-Smith‘s unwritten Beetlejuice sequel is currently a big, fat maybe. As of right now, Smith has only gone as far to discuss the project with the studio, Tim Burton, and Michael Keaton, who all sound game, as long as one small little detail is taken care of: nailing the script. As I spoke to Smith yesterday, it was obvious he knew the stakes involved in doing a sequel to Burton’s beloved classic. I mean, who on earth wants to be the guy responsible for making a lame Beetlejuice sequel? Obviously, Smith doesn’t want that title.
“When Warner Bros. first talked to me about it I said there needs to be two things to happen before I would even consider it,” said Grahame-Smith. “For one, it couldn’t be some kind of reboot or remake with a different actor playing Beetlejuice. I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted actual Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice and an actual sequel to the movie. Two, I said I’d only do it if Tim gave it his blessing and guided the process. I got both of those things: Tim to say if there was a good enough script he would help with the development of it and I got Michael Keaton to say, if the script was good enough, he’d be open to doing it.”
He continued, “You know, what I keep telling people is I don’t want to do it unless we’re really sure that it’s worthy. The original is one of my favorite movies, so I don’t want to make Son of the Mask. I would rather kill myself than destroy the legacy of one of my favorite films. Right now I owe people an idea and a treatment, and that’s where it is right now. We’re a little while off from any news or movement from that.”
And, if the project came to fruition as a true sequel, it’d certainly be interesting to see Beetlejuice in the 21st Century.
Smith commented on the idea, “Yeah, that’s inevitably going to be a part of it, since it’s going to be 27 or 28 years after the first film. It’s interesting, you wonder what happened to those characters, how times have changed, and how Beetlejuice would interact with them. Right now it’s in the ‘we’ll see’ stage.”
Keaton himself has publicly said he’d play Beetlejuice again in a heartbeat. Whether a Beetlejuice 2 happens or not, all I want to see is Keaton and Burton collaborate again.