Tim Burton‘s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice wasn’t a cash grab, he told reporters at a Wednesday press conference during Venice Film Festival. In fact, the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice director said he didn’t even rewatch the 1988’s Beetlejuice, which he also directed, in order to prepare for the 2024 sequel, Variety reports.
“I wasn’t out to do a big sequel for money or anything like that, I wanted to make this for very personal reasons,” Burton said during the presser. “Like I said, I didn’t watch the first movie to prepare for this. I remembered the spirit of it and I remembered everybody here.”
Returning stars Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara; and newcomers Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe, and Monica Bellucci joined Burton on the panel. Recalling the 36-year-old original, Burton said he “never understood why it was a success,” Deadline reports, and harped on how the franchise was a “very personal project” for him.
“Over the past few years, I got disillusioned with the movie business,” Burton said. “I lost myself a bit, so this movie was re-energizing. Getting back to the things I love doing, and the way I love doing it, with the people I love doing it with. That’s the only way for me to be a success is I have to love doing it.”
In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, three generations of the Deetz family return home after a family tragedy. The undead bogeyman Beetlejuice (Keaton) continues to haunt Lydia (Ryder). Lydia’s daughter Astrid (Ortega) later discovers a model of their town and accidentally opens a portal into the afterlife. According to Deadline, Burton is unlikely to direct a Beetlejuice 3 given the decades-long gap between Beetlejuice and the 2024 sequel.
“Let’s do the math,” Burton said. “It took 35 years to do this. For another, I’d be over 100. It could be possible thanks to medical science. But I don’t think so.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice hits theaters on Sep. 6.
