Beetlejuice 2 Is Confirmed, Says Tim Burton

It’s showtime, then.

Director Tim Burton has confirmed that the long-in-gestation ‘Beetlejuice 2’ is go. It’s on. It’s officially happening.

And what’s more, the original stars are in too, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder.

Speaking to Showbiz Spy, he said: “The film is a go and has been approved by the Warner Bros. team, we have talked with the cast members we wanted for the film and they are all on board, this includes both Winona and Michael.

“We have the script in hand everything is in place all we need to do now is get ready to start filming.”

Not much ambiguity there.

One of the most beloved movies of the 80s, Keaton will be reprising his role as the anarchic Betelgeuse, the freelance 'bio-exorcist’ ghost who assists a recently deceased couple scare the owners of their old house into leaving.

In the 1988 movie, Ryder played Lydia Deetz, the goth daughter of the house’s new owners (played by Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones), while Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis were the Maitlands, the dead couple wishing to have their house vacated by the Deetz family.

Only Tim Burton’s second job as director, it’s unique look made his name, teeing him up for his benchmark 'Batman’ the following year and his stardom to come, including movies like 'Edward Scissorhands’, 'Ed Wood’ and 'Mars Attacks!’.

The sequel has been in the offing since 1990, with the aborted project 'Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian’, in which Burton wanted to 'match the surfing backdrop of a beach movie with some sort of German Expressionism’, according to British writer Jonathan Gems, who penned 'Mars Attacks!’ for Burton.

It would have followed the Deetz family moving to Hawaii, where Charles Deetz was planning to build a resort complex, but on the burial site of an ancient Kahuna, or sorcerer, resulting in Betelgeuse being drafted in to help out when the spirit begins causing trouble.

Kevin Smith was at one time drafted in to rewrite the script, but it all eventually went south.

But since 2011, Seth Graeme-Smith, who wrote the novels 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ and 'Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter’, has been working on a sequel script.

For her part, Ryder has always said she’d get involved in a second film, which apparently occurs as one might expect, nearly 30 years after the first movie.

She said back in 2013: “I’m kind of sworn to secrecy but it sounds like it might be happening. It’s 27 years later. And I have to say, I love Lydia Deetz so much. She was such a huge part of me. I would be really interested in what she is doing 27 years later.”

Image credits: Rex Features