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The highly anticipated sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 film Beetlejuice received a massive standing ovation as it opened the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday night.
The follow up from Burton premiered at the festival, and marked a reunion for actors Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara, all of who reprised their roles in the sequel.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also stars Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci, and Willem Dafoe.
As the film ended, the audience applauded for nearly four minutes, with the cast coming together in the balcony for bows.
The film has opened to overall good reviews but The Independent’s Geoffrey Macnab gave it a middling two stars, describing it as “scattershot work”.
“You could claw together some brilliant short films from the best sequences here … at points, the anarchic comedy gives way to surprisingly clunky sentimentality, while the acting sometimes leaves much to be desired.”
Before the premiere, Burton said that he considered retiring from filmmaking after the release of his 2019 movie Dumbo, but working on the hit Netflix series Wednesday helped him find his connection to “making things” again.
“I really didn’t know. I thought that could have been it, really. I could have retired, or become… well, I wouldn’t have become an animator again, that’s over,” Burton told Variety.
The Edward Scissorhands director said that it was Wednesday that “reconnected me to making things.”
In the same vein, Burton told The Independent last year, that working on the Beetlejuice sequel had reawakened his love for film-making.
“On this last one, Beetlejuice 2, I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I tried to strip everything and go back to the basics of working with good people and actors and puppets. It was kind of like going back to why I liked making movies.”
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The original Beetlejuice grossed $74.7 m and was also a critical success, and the sequel is estimated to make anywhere between $65-80 m when it opens in the US.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice brings the Deetz family back to the family’s country home after the death of Charles Deetz. Ryder’s Delia is grown up and is now mother to her own surly teen daughter, Astrid, played by Ortega. Just as Delia did a few decades ago, Astrid finds the model city in the attic and releases Keaton’s Betelgeuse, unleashing chaos.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in cinemas from 6 September.
