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Beetlejuice 2: "Let it be strange" says Seth Grahame-Smith - SciFiNow

Beetlejuice 2: “Let it be strange” says Seth Grahame-Smith

Dark Shadows’ writer Seth Grahame Smith talks Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice 2

Michael Keaton in the original Beetlejuice

Early 2012, Beetlejuice fans everywhere were hit with the news that there will be a sequel on its way, more than 25 years after the original. All we knew was that it was not going to be a reboot and that Michael Keaton would be starring as the pesky crotch-grabbing poltergeist.

Now we’ve spoken to writer Seth Grahame-Smith (who also penned Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), who’s confirmed they have found their premise. “I’ve spoken to Tim [Burton] recently about it and he has some very certain ideas about what it should be and I’m really excited to write it,” Grahame-Smith tells us.

“Talk about pressure and scrutiny though, for some people it would be like making a sequel to Citizen Kane,” he continues. “The thing that scares me and the thing I love about Beetlejuice project is there are very few ways to get it right and a whole host of ways to get it wrong.”

The original idea for a sequel back in 1990 was to move the Deetz family to Hawaii. They would develop a resort on ancient burial ground and Beetlejuice would win a surfing contest.

“I’m not sure it would have worked but Tim [Burton] wanted to shoot it like one of those old Beach Bingo, Sixties teen surf movies and Beetlejuice wins a surfing contest,” he says. “It was so crazy-ridiculous that it would have been a spectacle no matter what.

“That’s the thing with Beetlejuice, you have to respect the absurdity of it all; you can’t try to corral this character into a conventional movie. You have to let the movie be strange.”

Seth Grahame-Smith’s latest novel-soon-to-be-movie Unholy Night is available now priced £7.98 from Amazon.co.uk.