Michael Keaton didn’t want CGI in Beetlejuice 2 for more fun

“It had to look handmade,” explains the actor.

Prepare to laugh in fear because Michael Keaton is soon back in his role as a wacky demon in BeetlejuiceBeetlejuicethe sequel to the cult film by Tim Burton. The director ofEdward Scissorhands is still at the helm of this new opus and finds her new favorite actress Jenna Ortegawhich he was already directing in his series Wednesday.

In an interview given to the magazine People, Michael Keaton explained the importance for him of limiting digital special effects as much as possible on BeetlejuiceBeetlejuice : “I was absolutely not interested in doing something where there was too much technology,” he declares. He adds that it is an element on which Burton and he decided “from the beginning, if we ever did it again.”

A first poster and a title for the sequel to Beetlejuice

“It had to look handmade”, he summarizes. With the increasing influx of blockbusters made almost exclusively on a blue or green background, the return of old-school VFX craftsmanship is becoming a popular commodity among movie buffs and old school actors like Keaton :

“What made it fun was watching someone in the corner hold something up for you, to look at everyone in the reduced headspace and say ‘These are the people down there, who make these things work, who try to do things right.‘”

“When you can do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending that someone is next to you, it’s a huge boost!“

The taste of artifice well done! maybe BeetlejuiceBeetlejuice owes its success to this importance given to craftsmanship. But what will make the film charming will above all be its casting bringing together old stars and new recruits: Michael Keaton is accompanied by Catherine O’Haraalready present in the first opus, who reprises her role of Delia Deetz, as well as Winona Ryder playing a grown-up Lydia Deetz while still a goth teenager in the 1988 film.

William Dafoe And Monica Bellucci are added to this already very attractive list, and to top it all off, she is the young muse of the Burtonverse Jenna Ortega who will play the new addition to the Deetz clan, Astrid, Lydia’s daughter and Delia’s granddaughter. “It’s just a lot of fun”, affirms Keaton about this sequel. BeetlejuiceBeetlejuice will be released in cinemas on September 11, 2024.

Beetlejuice: how Michael Keaton brought Tim Burton’s cult character to life