So far as Matt Rodgers has written on IMDb Tim Burton has said that Beetlejuice 2 might not even happen, and quite honestly there are some people that couldn’t be happier about it. You might ask why that is but the answer is pretty simple; Beetlejuice had a clear-cut beginning and ending that was wrapped up nicely throughout the movie. He was given enough of a back story that he didn’t need to be fleshed out any more than he already was, and he was the kind of character that has obviously become a cult classic but at the same time doesn’t have a lot of mobility to keep going with his own story without getting stale. This was kind of proven by the Beetlejuice cartoon that came about despite the fact that Christopher Inoa of SyFyWire rightly claims that it was a hit. The cartoon was in fact pretty popular since it could go places and do thing that live action couldn’t, but while it was popular for a while it only lasted four seasons until it was taken off the air and Beetlejuice was relegated once again to the dark places where only memory is capable of shining a light powerful enough to illuminate such things.
But as Adam Chitwood from Collider reported back in 2016 even Tim Burton, the creator of the movie, admitted that everything would have to be just right for this film to be made. So far it doesn’t seem that things have been just right but there have been rumors over the past few years that the movie might be in the works, and there have been movie posters out that indicate as much. While it’s definitely possible though that Beetlejuice could come back to theaters it seems that it might take a while since if it was coming back you would think that it would have made it by now. Some might say that’s not necessarily true since there’s a lot that goes into a movie and it’s not uncommon for things to be set on the metaphorical back burner now and again to simmer before the director is ready to unload it on the public. Unfortunately for those that would argue such a thing they’ve kind of given up the argument altogether if they have to resort to this line of thinking since putting a movie on the back burner is a sure way to forget about it for a while and miss that fleeting moment when everything is ‘just right’ and the time to release it comes along.
There are good reasons why it might not be a good idea to ever bring this movie back since quite honestly the reboot and remake phase that’s been going around for a while, and even the sequels that come out now and again, seem to be destroying the movies that we’ve loved for so long by taking sense and reason, both things that had very little place in the movies in the 80s and 90s, and injecting the films with them in copious amounts. So yes, it leads to more realism and that’s a good thing since the less camp in a movie these days the better. But it also kind of destroys the whole idea of what the movie was all about in the first place. It’s a matter retaining the ‘purity’ of the movie any longer, not at all. It’s about keeping a part of what we remember intact and not having to see it be torn apart by an idea that was best left on the drawing room floor along with many other ideas that could have been something had they been given enough development.
Beetlejuice is a character that’s both comical and dangerous and can be both in equal measure. His whole act was that he wanted to eradicate the living but could only do so when he was called upon, and that seemed just fine since it gave those that called him a way out of their mistake. But with the way movies are being made these days in regards to the PC culture and what it seems to demand so often it would seem that Beetlejuice would have to be more like his cartoon counterpart, a friendly ‘ghost with the most’ that isn’t out to hurt people and just wants to have a good time, or he’d have to become a psychopathic killer that has the kind of humor you’d find in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The middle ground that he was allowed to inhabit back in the 80s is something that many people seem to find offensive these days despite the fact that it kept him more PC than he would have to be today to appease people. Honestly, the main reason not to see this movie would be that the titular character would have to go way over the top or else become a truly pacified version of his old self.
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