The trailer for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is out now — featuring callbacks to the OG film, Beetlejuice.
The sequel, which stars Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, Winona Ryder, and Jenna Ortega, is coming over 40 years after the original film, which was released in 1988.
Tim Burton, director, writer, producer, and pioneer in goth culture, is the director of the Beetlejuice sequel. Writers Seth Grahame-Smith, David Katzenberg, Michael McDowel, Mike Vukadinovich, and Larry Wilson collaborated to write the film’s script.
“It’s the most fun I’ve had on set in a long time,” Michael Keaton told PEOPLE. “On one hand, you’d go, ‘Well, of course it’s the most fun. It looks like fun.’ As you know, it doesn’t always work like that.”
“The one thing that [Burton] and I decided on early, early, early on from the beginning, if we ever did it again, I was totally not interested in doing something where there was too much technology,” Keaton continued. “It had to feel handmade. It’s the most exciting thing. When you get to do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending somebody’s across the way from you, this is just enormous fun.”
‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Trailer Features Callbacks to OG Film, Wowing Audience
Though Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a highly anticipated film, Keaton and Burton were apparently both “hesitant and cautious” to create the sequel.
“We thought, ‘You got to get this right. Otherwise, just don’t do it. Let’s just go on with our lives and do other things,'” Keaton said. “Once we got there, I said, ‘OK, let’s just go for it. Let’s just see if we can do it, if we can pull this off.'”
The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trailer is already proving to be a success.
“36 years later and Michael Keaton hasn’t lost all that charm that makes him Beetlejuice and in one sentence makes me nostalgic and extremely happy to see him,” one person commented on the YouTube trailer.
“He’s still got it over 30 years later. Also, so glad to see stop-motion animated sandworms, and the shruken head guy again,” another person added. “This is how you do a revival, people.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will premiere in theaters on September 6.