Director Tim Burton only has two days left of filming Beetlejuice 2 after the SAG-AFTRA strike ends. The long-awaited fantasy-comedy stars Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O'Hara, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, and Monica Bellucci.
“I feel grateful we got what we got,” says Burton to The Independent. “Literally, it was a day and a half [left of filming]. We know what we have to do. It is 99% done.”
Tim Burton Says Beetlejuice 2 Reminded Him Why He Likes Making Movies
In the same interview with The Independent, Burton says that he has a hard time watching his movies afterwards because he still feels the “emotional whatever” from them. “On this last one, Beetlejuice 2, I really enjoyed it,” says Burton. “I tried to strip everything and go back to the basics of working with good people and actors and puppets. It was kind of like going back to why I liked making movies.”
Beetlejuice 2 is a Warner Bros. production that started filming in May in London. Keaton, Ryder, and O'Hara reprise their roles as Betelgeuse, Lydia Deetz, and Delia Deetz, respectively. Ortega plays Lydia's daughter with goth tendencies.
“Beetlejuice is the most f—in’ fun you can have working,” says Keaton to Empire. “It’s so fun, it’s so great. And you know what it is? We’re doing it exactly like we did the first movie. There’s a woman in the great waiting room for the afterlife literally with a fishing line – I want people to know this because I love it – tugging on the tail of a cat to make it move.”
Keaton continues,
“[Burton] and I were talking about it years and years ago, never telling anybody. I said, if it happens, first of all, we’ve both said we’re doing it many times. We both agreed, if it happens, it has to be done as close to the way we made it the first time. Making stuff up, making stuff happen, improvising and riffing, but literally handmade stuff like people creating things with their hands and building something. It’s the most fun I’ve had working on a movie in I can’t tell you how long.”
Beetlejuice 2′s scheduled theatrical release date is September 6, 2024. Whether or not that date stays set depends upon when the SAG-AFTRA strike ends, which will allow Burton to complete shooting the sequel.