BEETLEJUICE 2 Scribe Gives a Glimpse into What the Film Should Be!

Writer Seth Grahame-Smith has been making his way around Hollywood lately. First, the film adaptation of his novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter recently hit screens, and now is his name is listed as the writer for a Beetlejuice sequel. I have a lot to say about this, but we will save that for the end, the facts first.

Bleeding Cool recently did with Grahame-Smith in which he said, “just theoretical right now, but development is definitely underway, and everybody involved is keen for it to happen."

I hope it stays theoretical, but he goes on:

If we come up with nothing but shit then we’re not going to do it. Beetlejuice, I think, is too important to too many people, myself included, and Tim, and Michael Keaton, to do a sequel just for the sake of it, because we’d think it would be commercial. It’s one of my favourite movies of all time. I still have the original 1988 poster in my office, framed, above my desk. It was an important and seminal movie for me. I want to find a way, so badly, to get it right, but I am so absolutely horrified at the thought of getting it wrong that we’re taking our time and being really careful about it. Though I have talked to Tim quite a bit about it, and I have talked to Michael quite a bit.

But here’s the problem. Beetlejuice was a wonderful accident. It has, of course, irreverence, visual inventiveness and daring, and it has subversive humour in it. Endless inventiveness. But, really, when they put it together, and Tim will tell you this, David Geffen will tell you this, and Michael Keaton will tell you this, that when they first put it together it just didn’t work. That was a movie that miraculously and strangely came together in editing. They found this wonderful, strange, irreverent movie in there.

That’s the scariest part for me – essentially I’m trying to catch lightning in a bottle. The chance of creating something transcendent twice is very slim.

But I think the magic ingredient is trying not to over do it. Not to make it some crazy, overblown big Beetlejuice Saves the World type of story. Frankly, Beetlejuice himself is only in the original movie for about a half hour. I think using him sparingly is key. And not trying to make it so modern, family friendly and broad but to cling to the things that made it a little dangerous.

And obviously we’re not remaking the movie or rebooting it. It would be a sequel, and however much time has passed between the two movies, that’s the amount of time that will have passed in the story

I am sorry, he can talk about how much he loves the story, and how he doesn’t want to put something out that doesn’t work. This whole idea doesn’t work. I feel like they are taking something amazing and turning it into crap. Beetlejuice is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I feel that making a sequel will only take away from it. I could go on all day about how I hate this idea. However, I am looking to you all to sway my opinion. Should this movie happen? Am I being too much of a butt about this? Until next time…

McMurphy Out!