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Total Film
Total Film
Entertainment
Megan Garside

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star reveals her secret pitch to Tim Burton before they started making the sequel: "I know it's twisted"

Winona Ryder as Lydia and Justin Theroux as Rory in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star Winona Ryder has revealed she had the wildest idea for the upcoming sequel, and it is something she has been hoping for ever since the original movie came out almost 40 years ago. 

"I always wanted Lydia to end up with Beetlejuice. I know that sounds twisted but that was my big pitch always to Tim," said Ryder in an interview with Happy Sad Confused Podcast.  "I just have this like love, I don't know if it's just because I love the movie and I love Michael [Keaton] and I love Tim [Burton], but I have this dream that they will end up together as this bickering kind of George and Martha couple."

In the original movie, Ryder plays teenager Lydia who, with her parents, moves into a haunted house and soon comes face to face with Keaton’s Ghost with the Most, who, for some reason, tries to marry her. The star later highlighted that she knows it would have been "weird" for the two to get together in the original movie as back in 1988 she and her character Lydia were only 15. But now she is in her fifties, she thinks it is appropriate the two finally "end up together".

In fact, this was something the Stranger Things star had been pushing for even before the sequel was announced, as she recalled her conversations with director Tim Burton. "I know it sounds really twisted but I do remember in all of our talks, they were always like at night and Tim would always pace with his notebook and that was always like the thing I was like but what if."

Now, we will have to wait until Beetlejuice 2 drops to find out if Ryder’s dream has actually come to fruition. Welcoming back Ryder and Keaton alongside Catherine O'Hara, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice revisits the Deetz family decades later when they return to their haunted family home, this time bringing Lydia’s own teen daughter Astrid (Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega) along for the ride. But trouble brews and Betelgeuse is still lurking in the afterlife just waiting to be summoned once again. Will it be a happy reunion for Lydia and Beetlejuice? Ryder hopes so!

The movie also stars Poor Things’ Willem Dafoe, Mulholland Drive’s Justin Theroux, and The Matrix’s Monica Bellucci as Beetlejuice’s wife - we hope that doesn't spoil things for Ryder’s dream romance with the ghoul. 

Beetlejuice 2 hits theaters on September 6, 2024. But before you head out to see the movie, make sure to read our spoiler-free Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review first. For more, check out all upcoming horror movies on the way, or keep up to date with our list of 2024 movie release dates.

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