Credit: DC / Warner BrosMichael Keaton has returned to blockbuster movies in a big way in the last couple of years, but it turns out he didn’t want to come back to his greatest role. Like, at all.
Michael Keaton was famously an unconventional choice to play the starring role in director Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). DC Comics fans sent letters of protest to a nervous Warner Bros, and tabloids openly questioned why an actor best known for light comedies like Mr. Mom (1983) and Johnny Dangerously (1984) had been cast as the Dark Knight.
Then Batman became one of the highest-grossing movies in history and is now regarded as a benchmark in the evolution of superhero adaptation movies. Michael Keaton reprised the role of Bruce Wayne in Batman Returns (1992) before hanging up the cowl for decades until his turn in The Flash, a movie that is also a benchmark in the history of superhero movies in that it is the single worst-performing one ever.
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However, critics and fans alike should have known before Batman came out why Tim Burton selected Michael Keaton to play his grim avenger of the night: his previous performance in Beetlejuice (1988), the dark supernatural comedy co-starring Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin, and Geena Davis.
Michael Keaton is also returning to the role of Beetlejuice (or Betelgeuse, if you’re fancy) for an upcoming sequel, but according to Tim Burton, the actor was uninterested in playing the character again.
In a recent interview with the British Film Institute, Tim Burton revealed that Michael Keaton basically was indifferent to the idea of Beetlejuice 2, saying, “He didn’t want to do it [initially] – he had no necessarily burning desire.”
Fortunately for all fans of supernatural horror-comedy, it appears that the man behind Edward Scissorhands (1990) is pretty persuasive. Burton continued on, saying production on the movie “reminded me of back in the old days, this unhinged thing unleashed on the set. I was quite shocked at how easy it was for him to kick it back into it. It was like demon possession.”
Regardless of how Michael Keaton felt about returning to his greatest role ever, Warner Bros Discovery is hoping that Beetlejuice 2 will be a hit it deeply needs. Beetlejuice 2 will star Keaton and fellow returning stars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara, playing Lydia and Delia Deetz.
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The film will also star recent Tim Burton muse Jenna Ortega as the daughter of Winona Ryder’s character and, most likely, Beetlejuice’s new target. Additionally, the movie will star Willem Dafoe and Justin Theroux in so far unrevealed roles, and Monica Bellucci as Beetlejuice’s wife.
Tim Burton has described the new Beetlejuice sequel as a movie centered on Jenna Ortega, which makes sense, considering she is fast becoming one of the most famous horror stars in the world, and about family, which makes a little less sense, but okay. We’re just excited that Michael Keaton came back, even if he didn’t feel like it at first.
Are you excited for Jenna Ortega to star in a Beetlejuice movie? Is Beetlejuice actually about family, or what did Tim Burton mean by that? Let us know in the comments below!