With Tim Burton’s latest movie Big Eyes hitting the big screen this week, he has been doing the obligatory promotional rounds to plug the Christoph Waltz starring vehicle. Thusly, due to Burton’s recent confirmation that he will be helming the sequel to Beetlejuice with his old buddy Michael Keaton – who will be reprising the role of the eponymous exorcist – Burton has been finding himself inundated with questions regarding the long-awaited sequel to the hit 1988 comedy/horror.

So far we have learned that Winona Ryder is set to reprise her role as a grown-up Lydia Deetz, with Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis passing on a offer to reprise their roles as the Maitlands from the original movie; embracing Geena Davis’s famous reminder that, “ghosts don’t age.” Also, sadly Glen Shadix (Otho the savvy yuppie) has since passed away during the time it has taken from the filming of the first movie and the pre-production of Beetlejuice 2.

All considering, Burton’s recent comments he made in an interview with Yahoo! Movies make all the more sense contextually. Burton stated that Beetlejuice 2 isn’t something that he thinks of as a sequel per se. Here is what Burton had to say to Yahoo! Movies:

“There’s a script now, that I think is closer to what it could be and I’m excited about it. I wouldn’t call it so much a sequel, but it’ll have some characters [from the original ‘Beetlejuice’]. It’s a bit too early to say but it’s definitely something that’s on my radar and something I’d love to do.”

So going by Burton’s comments, Beetlejuice is definitely going to be on a different boat that other upcoming 80s-remake/reboot/reimagining-revival fare. It has been screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (Dark Shadows) original plan from the outset was to bring Keaton back to his famous role, as opposed to a reimagining similar to the Nightmare On Elm Street reboot in which Jackie Earl Haley replaced Robert Englund in the iconic role of Freddy Krueger (with Haley instilling the creepiness back into Krueger). Needless to say, with Michael Keaton making somewhat of resurgence as of late for his amazing performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu Birdman, Grahme-Smith’s ultimate aim is to bring Keaton back to his famous role as the crazed exorcist – which is a hellova lot better than recasting the role to appeal to a new generation of film-goers, as sometimes this can go drastically wrong (Total Recall, Fright Night and Robocop are a few that spring to mind).

However, sometimes the nostalgia trip can taint the original movie as we witnessed with this years release of Dumb and Dumber to, as Jim Carrey (who was great in his part as Lloyd Christmas), and Jeff Daniels (who was awful and changed the character of Harry Dunne that we all grew up loving with repeated viewings). Beetlejuice will be taking the same route, however, Keaton should be able to seamlessly slip back into the role as he is a fantastic comedic actor, and with Ryder on board as Lydia, all the ingredients are there to see Tim Burton churn out another idiosyncratic comedy/horror, with Keaton going back to his whacky comedic routes (…and hey, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter won’t be showing up in this by the looks of things).

We still remain cautious after the disappointing Dumb and Dumber to, but it’s better than a reboot/re-imagining.

What do you think peeps? You looking forward to this one?

Yahoo! Movies