Summary

• Tim Burton had become tired of the movie industry prior to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but making Wednesday helped to reinvigorate his creative interests.
• The character of Lydia was his main draw regarding making Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as he had a desire to explore how people change as they get older.
• The sequel features a return to the classic movie-making methods that were used in the 1988 original.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice's trailers have already teased a return to the tone and visual style of the original film, in addition to returns from cast Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara, who played Lydia and Delia, respectively, in the first movie.

In a recent interview with Empire, Burton explains that he had become somewhat burnt out on the movie business, but Beetlejuice Beetlejuice drew him back in. In addition to having an interest in further exploring the character of Lydia, the director reveals that his experience executive producing Wednesday encouraged him to return to the world of his 1988 film. Check out his full comment below:

"I actually had sort of lost interest in the movie industry. I felt like I’d had enough with studios. I’d had enough of all this kind of stuff.”

"From the first [film], I really identified with Lydia. It was a character that I understood, that I felt very strongly about. The new film became very personal to me, through the Lydia character. What happened to Lydia? You know, what happens to people? What happens to all of us? What’s your journey from a gothic kind of weird teenager to what happens to you 35 years later?

“Sometimes, as you get older, you lose yourself a little bit. That’s very much how I feel, and felt. You go down a path – for me, I started making movies, I make some good ones, I make some bad, you take a journey.

So that’s what made this more of an important and personal thing for me, all those feelings. You have relationships that change you, you have kids that change you. After all these years, that became the reason to make it. I identified with Lydia back then, and I identify with her now.”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Looks Like A Big Throwback Movie

Tim Burton Attempts To Recapture The Magic Of His Original

Although the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice cast features newcomers like Jenna Ortega (who starred in Netflix's Wednesday), Monica Belluci, Willem Dafoe, and Justin Theroux, the film brings back a number of elements of the original movie. Burton is very much a director known for his filmmaking idiosyncrasies and his unique visual style, and these elements are on full display in the new sequel. It's now been 36 years since the original Beetlejuice, and Burton's return to the movie industry clearly looks like an attempt to recapture some of this decades-old magic.

A crucial reason why Beetlejuice Beetlejuice looks like the original film is because Burton employed many of the same filmmaking techniques while making it. Since the original was made before CGI was really in widespread use, practical effects, including matte paintings and puppetry, were integral to bringing the movie's unique characters and environments to life. Keaton himself has affirmed that many of these same practical methods are being used in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and the trailer makes this evident.

The movie industry has evidently changed a lot since the heyday of Burton's career from the late '80s to the early 2000s, but Beetlejuice Beetlejuice looks like a clear attempt to go back in time, to a certain degree. Since Burton had become somewhat disillusioned with the state of the business, this sequel has the potential to revive a visionary filmmaker's career, perhaps signaling his trajectory over the next few years. It remains to be seen how Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will be received, but the film is shaping up to be Burton's most exciting project in decades.

Source: Empire