Lydia Deetz may dress like the dead, but she’s still alive and kicking per some set photos from the production of Beetlejuice 2. The Twitter account @EpicFilmGuys released a first look at Winona Ryder reprising the role. The film is due out in Sept. 2024.
Cameras began rolling earlier this month on the long-awaited sequel, following a whopping 35 years in that interminable afterlife waiting room. Although we don’t yet have a look at Michael Keaton returning as the eponymous antihero (or maybe just straight-up villain), we do get a glimpse of Ryder sitting in a car, looking just as she did as an impressionable young girl trying to write the perfect suicide note.
As you can see, Lydia looks like she’s barely aged a day — no doubt a result of avoiding daylight — and her iconic chunky bangs seem intact as well. Keaton and Ryder are joined this time by Jenna Ortega (playing Lydia’s daughter), Catherine O’Hara (reprising her role as Lydia’s step-mother), and newcomers Justin Theroux (The Leftovers) and Monica Bellucci (Spectre).
There are no details yet about Theroux’s role, but Bellucci is rumored to be playing the wife of Beetlejuice (sic). Fans of the original will remember that Beetlejuice first tried to marry Lydia in order to gain his freedom, but his play was foiled by Geena Davis riding a sandworm. It sounds like he suckered one of the most beautiful Italian actresses of her generation to say “I do” instead, so that should please him.
Twitter reactions to the set photos are best described as cautiously optimistic. No one’s doubting the cast, but director Tim Burton hasn’t exactly been experiencing a career renaissance recently. Although responses have been widely positive for his Wednesday series on Netflix — also starring Ortega — most people can count on one hand the number of truly good films he’s made since the year 2000. (There are two: Sweeney Todd and his Frankenweenie remake.) But perhaps a trip back to the model graveyard is all Burton needs to renew his inspiration. That, and a better title. You can’t call it Beetlejuice 2 when Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice is right there for the taking.