The 2024 Venice Film Festival has gotten off to a green-haired, gothic bang with Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which opened the festival with a 3-minute standing ovation.
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The clapping would have most likely gone on much longer but the Venice programmers quickly dimmed the lights as Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’ Hara and Jenna Ortega took a bow and lapped up the applause.
But this cast didn’t break a sweat. Keaton and Burton drew loud hoots of applause as they signed dozens of autographs (though Burton refused a female fans’ request to draw “my next tattoo” in a notebook she was holding). Ortega, looking radiant in a red Dior gown, soaked up the spotlight as the newcomer to the franchise, taking selfies with well-wishers inside the lobby of the theater. As the program started, the 21-year-old star led a standing ovation for Sigourney Weaver, who accepted an honorary Golden Lion before “Beetlejuice 2” began.
Warner Bros.’ fantasy comedy horror will land in theaters 36 years after Burton’s cult 1988 original, with Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara reprising their roles alongside new cast members Ortega, Monica Bellucci, Justin Theroux and Willem Dafoe. The film sees the Deetz family return to their old family home, this time with Ryder’s rebellious teenage daughter (Ortega) who discovers the model of the town in the attic, opens the portal to the afterlife and releases Keaton’s Betelgeuse once again.
The long-in-the-works sequel was first touted shortly after the first film, which became a critical and commercial success and grossed $74.7 million, with scripts commissioned in 1990. Several ideas went back and forth — including a story in which Beetlejuice goes to Hawaii — before Seth Grahame-Smith came on as a writer in 2011. But the project still took a long time to get moving, and it wasn’t until early 2022 that the sequel was formally announced, this time being produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment alongside Warner Bros.
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The wait appears to have paid off, as early tracking reports have “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” estimated to earn $65-80 million in its opening weekend in the U.S.
Speaking to Variety days before Venice, Burton said that “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” had saved him from retirement after making 2019’s live-action “Dumbo,” which received mediocre reviews.
“I thought that could have been it, really. I could have retired, or become… well, I wouldn’t have become an animator again,” he said. “But this did reenergize me. Oftentimes, when you get into Hollywood, you try to be responsible to what you’re doing with the budget and everything else but sometimes you might lose yourself a little bit. This reinforced the feeling for me that it’s important that I do what I want to do, because then everybody will benefit.”
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