Why is "Beetlejuice" Worth Making a Sequel of in 2024?

As Beetlejuice Beetlejuice topped the North American box office for two consecutive weeks, we can finally admit that we underestimated the influence of Beetlejuice, a 1988 cult classic. Among Tim Burton's works, it didn’t sell as well as Batman or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, nor did it earn the critical acclaim of Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, or Big Fish. It seems understandable why it was overlooked.

But, as it turns out, Beetlejuice is the Tim Burton movie most suited for a sequel in 2024, 36 years after the original’s release. Why? Why does Beetlejuice's story still resonate today?

1. Its Timelessness

As a gothic director obsessed with ghostly elements, Tim Burton's films have one major advantage: they are not strongly tied to any specific time or reality, which makes them timeless. And Beetlejuice is perhaps Burton's most timeless film.

The story of Beetlejuice takes place in a remote rural area, where a husband and a wife die unexpectedly and become ghosts. Afterward, they find themselves sharing their house with a materialistic, pretentious new couple. Unwilling to live with them, they seek help from Beetlejuice, a rogue “bio-exorcist” who offers to scare the humans away. However, Beetlejuice’s chaotic and dangerous nature soon forces the ghostly couple to team up with the human family’s quirky daughter, Lydia, to resist him.

The essence of Beetlejuice lies in its setting: a supernatural realm where the worlds of the living and the dead collide. The time period in which it happens is largely irrelevant. Many of the key characters are ghosts, capable of existing across centuries. This timelessness makes Beetlejuice adaptable to any era.

Moreover, the core theme of Beetlejuice can be replicated: the story of a girl who despises the adult world’s shallowness and pretense, seeking solace amidst it all. This was central to the first film and will again be relevant in the sequel, with Jenna Ortega playing a similar role. How Tim Burton revisits this theme while offering fresh perspectives is something to look forward to in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

2. It Acknowledges the Passage of Time

Although Beetlejuice is immune to the constraints of a particular era, it cannot escape the passage of real-time—in another word, aging. This theme is especially reflected in the character of Lydia, portrayed by Winona Ryder. In the first film, Lydia was a rebellious teenager defying the adult world. But in the sequel, she’s now the mother of a teenage daughter, with whom she finds herself at odds. The supernatural ability to see ghosts, which once made her special, is now a means for her to make a living, much to her daughter’s disdain.

Can Lydia reclaim her eccentric, free-spirited self under the weight of adult responsibilities? This is the core question the film poses to her, and it marks the major difference between Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and its predecessor. In the original, the young Tim Burton empathized entirely with the rebellious younger characters, without delving into the adult mindset. However, in the sequel, an older Tim Burton explores the psyche of the middle-aged: when you refuse to conform to the adult world’s banality, but the younger generation also rejects you, how do you carve out your own place?

The exploration of this subject could make Beetlejuice Beetlejuice a more mature film, appealing to both younger and older audiences. Additionally, Winona Ryder’s transformation over 36 years can evoke nostalgia. In contemporary films and TV shows, the passage of time itself has become a powerful theme. As we watch child actors grow up in Boyhood and Stranger Things, we feel like we’ve witnessed their real-life journeys. Similarly, seeing Winona Ryder’s evolution over 36 years offers viewers a unique emotional experience only motion pictures can provide.

3. Beetlejuice Himself

Of course, we cannot discuss Beetlejuice without mentioning its titular character.

In the original film, Beetlejuice doesn't appear fully on screen until 47 minutes in (initially seen only as a voice, a silhouette, or on TV), and he has a total screen time of just 18 minutes. But he remains the most unforgettable character in the film. His eccentricity, unruliness, arrogance, and madness turned him into one of cinema's most beloved monsters, as well as a popular Halloween costume icon.

The charm of Beetlejuice lies in his anarchic energy. He embodies the spirit of Dionysus, an incarnation of anarchism, and a symbol of unchecked libido. He paved the way for Jack Nicholson's Joker, yet stands in stark contrast to Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Jokers. While Ledger’s Joker is obsessed with meaning and Phoenix’s with pain, Beetlejuice’s madness requires no explanation. He simply is what he is, and he will not bother himself analyzing his motives or engaging in self-reflection. He revels in his existence, which, for me, makes him a far more enjoyable villain than Ledger’s philosophizer or Phoenix’s weeping antihero.

4. Tim Burton, of Course

Lastly, let’s turn our attention to the man behind Beetlejuice.

As one of Hollywood's most successful directors since the late 1980s, Burton hadn’t released a new film in five years before Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This hiatus can be attributed to both the collapse of his longtime collaborator Johnny Depp’s career and Burton’s own stylistic stagnation. Films like Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and Dark Shadows felt like soulless imitations of Burton’s earlier works, while Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo were Burton’s mercenary attempts to create new Hollywood franchises.

As time passed, Burton’s creative passion waned, and after the failure of Dumbo, he even considered retirement. With ample financial success and filmmaking becoming increasingly thankless, he questioned why he should continue.

But Hollywood would undoubtedly be less interesting without Tim Burton. We’ve grown accustomed to an endless stream of superhero films brimming with positivity, horror films designed solely to shock, and animated films aimed squarely at children. Films that navigate the space between these genres—films that can entertain both kids and adults, deliver scares without leaving trauma, and offer emotional depth without overly moralizing things—are rare. And it seems that only Tim Burton can craft such movies. He remains irreplaceable and is still one of Hollywood's most valuable assets.

So, we should be thankful that Tim Burton has reconnected with Beetlejuice. Revisiting this film has reignited his creative passion. Without it, who knows if we’d ever see another Tim Burton film? It might not mean much to him, but for many viewers, that would be an enormous loss.