New 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Trailer Teases Major Change For Michael Keaton's Character

By Andrew Sanford | Film | July 18, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | Film | July 18, 2024 |

You can’t just make a sequel to a near-forty-year-old movie without changing things up a little. Yes, audiences like familiarity and will flock to it when given the chance. We have seen plenty of “sequels” to decades-old movies that don’t switch up the formula at all. They merely regurgitate what once was while new characters glibly comment on the goings-on. “You really used to do this,” a whippersnapper will ask a legacy character played by an aging actor.

The legacy sequels that make no effort to do anything new or exciting are often the ones to fail. They disappear without being so much as a blip in the cultural consciousness. That hasn’t stopped others from continuing this current trend. IPs will continue to be brushed off and reexamined. When it is determined that something can’t be redone, it will instead be decreed that it should be done again, but differently. That seems to be the route Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is taking.

The original Beetlejuice was released in 1988. It would be almost impossible to imagine that film being remade. Part of that is because anyone playing Beetlejuice who isn’t Michael Keaton just seems silly. I say “almost” because, to be fair, the film was recently turned into a pretty successful Broadway musical. Still, to recapture the magic on the big screen, they needed to get the K-Man onboard. Not only have they done that, they look to be leaning into his status as a fan-favorite character.

In the original film, Beetlejuice is a menace. He’s there to get laid, marry someone against their will, and force partygoers to lip-sync to Harry Belafonte tunes (okay, maybe he’s not all bad). Regardless of his dubious ways, ole BJ was loved by moviegoers. His status as a crowd-pleaser was further solidified with a softer take in the subsequent animated series. People love the Juice! So, the new sequel, titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, looks like it will have him helping our protagonists (for now).

A newly released trailer gives us another look at a meeting between Beetlejuice and Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz. While the first trailer implied that the Juice was released by accident or for dangerous reasons, the new trailer makes it clear that Lydia is going to her old foil for help. We then see Beetlejuice assisting Deetz in trying to rescue her daughter from the underworld.

Whether or not BJ sticks to his newfound helpful ways will have to wait to be seen. For now, what we know is that Beetlejuice is here to help because everything old is new, and everything new is old (but different).