Jenna Ortega confirms the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice character that fans suspected
Main poltergeist Michael Keaton also recently called the largely practical production "the most fun I’ve had on set in a long time."
Aux News Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Jenna Ortega may be three syllables away from summoning a very boorish ghoul every time she says the new name of her new film, but even this dire conundrum isn’t stopping her from telling the world how excited she is for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to finally hit theaters. (Oops! Now we’re all in it together.)
“I had always loved the movie… that’s why I was excited that they were bringing it back as well,” the Wednesday actor said in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. “I feel like studios nowadays, of course they want people in seats and you’ve got to do reboots or sequels or things like that to get people entwined, but to bring Beetlejuice back—of all of the stories—is so good because people need to revisit weird, strange, off-putting stories again.”
“The weirder you get with it, the more people you can get to see it, I think will probably do a lot for film in general,” she continued. Director Tim Burton, and Betelgeuse himself, Michael Keaton, have shared a similar sentiment, speaking about the beauty of foregoing CGI, green screens, and other modern technology to return to an era of filmmaking that felt a lot more “handmade.” (The name is spelled differently when referring to the character, by the way. That doesn’t count as number three!) Keaton recently told People that this production, which wrapped its last day and a half almost immediately when the strikes ended, was “the most fun I’ve had on set in a long time.” “What made it fun was watching somebody in the corner actually holding something up for you, to watch everybody in the shrunken head room and say, ‘Those are people under there, operating these things, trying to get it right,’” he elaborated.
Ortega also spoke to the scale of the film’s practical effects; the Burton-led production even transformed the real-life town of East Corinth, VT into the fictional Winter River, CT just like the first film. This unfortunately wasn’t all perfect—Ortega recalled a “super-weird energy” on set as the cast rushed through the sentimental experience so they could tear the set down before the strikes—but, she said, “for the most part, up until the very last day, I feel like the shoot was a celebration of everyone being back together and doing practical effects again.” “It was probably the happiest I had ever seen Tim on a set,” she continued. “He’s clapping at the monitor and shouting and laughing, which was really, really endearing.”
Ortega also confirmed a long-running rumor that her character Astrid is indeed Lydia’s (Winona Ryder) daughter. (Catherine O’Hara will also be returning to the franchise along with Ryder and Keaton.) While Ortega confirmed that Astrid won’t be “bright and sunny” at all—she’s not straying too far from her Wednesday roots—she is still “a little bit against my mom’s history or past.” “We butt heads quite a bit,” she added. Teenage daughters are terrifying, but Lydia’s dealt literal sandworms so we’re sure she’ll be fine.
We also somehow managed to reach the end of this article without summoning the ghost with the most, so we’ll leave you with this: [Redacted Redacted] hits theaters September 6. Just make sure you buy your tickets online so you don’t have to say it out loud.
44 Comments
Wonder if Astrid fighting with Lydia is how Betelgeuse comes back?
Beetlejuice.
Beatlejuice.
Nope.
Candyman.
Biggie Smalls.
Biiteljoos?
A Biiteljøøs once bit my sister.
Mynd you, Biiteljøøs bites Kan be pretty nasti…
Part of me was hoping she’d be super pink and pastel. Go against type, complain about her lame goth mom running around in all-black like she’s stage crew.
that sounds really dull, though
They way you used that comma makes it seem like you were about to second guess yourself and didn’t finish your thought.
I will miss Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin. But I will mostly miss Glenn Shadix as Otho. His part was small, but he was key to some of the funniest scenes in the original.He was also really funny in Heathers.RIP Glenn Shadix.
Davis will 1000% show up. And Baldwin 1000% will not.
Can’t forget Demolition Man.
Me too. Baldwin is obviously a no go, but I with they could have at least gotten Davis.
Shadix is one of those perfect character actors. He was never built to be a lead nor do I think he’d want to be. But he could show up for 20 minutes of your movie and absolutely kill it.
Let’s just hope she’s rubbing noses with Jesus!
I hope the villain ends up being Jeffery Jones playing himself.
Yeah, why isn’t he in this?**checks internet**Oh. Oh no.edit: Before anyone says anything, yes I was aware of his past.
I was going to leave my own Jeffrey Jones comment, but yours is better.
Yay, another production shitting on CG artists and saying they aren’t using it. Which, if this one is like virtually every other film that does so, means that it will in fact have CG.
It may be great, it may be terrible, but not calling it Beetledeuce will always bother me.
That’s what we’ll call it if it turns out to be a piece of crap.
Beetlejuice II, Electric Juicealoo
Beetlejuice II: The Juicening
Buttholedeuce
I believe that is a documentary about dung beetles.
…or Drumpf’s second presidential administration.
Just hearing they are foregoing CGi and using practical effects was music to my ears….Tim Burton can be hit or miss and 80s legacy sequels over 20 years can be terrible ( Coming 2 America, Indy Jones….I take it back, Top Gun was pretty good , again they also used practical effects instead of a CGI fest so now I’m even more pumped up for Beetlejuice).
Top Gun was absolutely a CGI-fest. The studios are misleading you about what it means to shoot “practically” and in some cases straight up lying to you about the use of VFX.
If I was Ortega I would have kicked off the press cycle by saying I hadn’t seen the original but maybe would someday — just to drive the internet insane.
I love the movie so maybe my view isn’t entirely reliable but Beetlejuice never struck me as THAT “weird” or “off-putting”.Then again, it’s a quote from Jenna Ortega and I’ve been quick to snark about anything she says post-Wednesday.
“The name is spelled differently when referring to the character, by the way. That doesn’t count as number three!”Number three was when you quoted Ortega in the second paragraph, nyah. And that’s not counting the headline.
Wish Emma luck.
Oh boy, the cast touting “no green screen” and doing everything “practically” is a big red flag. This keeps happening—studios and often the actors themselves reflexively denigrate digital VFX work, as if “practical” and digital are mutually-exclusive concepts in FX, then at the end of the movie pages and pages of credits roll for all the digital post-production and VFX workers who worked impossibly long hours to help make the supposedly “all practical” and “no CGI” production look as good as it does. And finally, smug, ignorant fans lap it all up as if these buzzwords have any meaning. And even if this movie is an exception (which I can almost guarantee it isn’t) it’s still a really gross practice to treat fellow industry professionals like their contributions are somehow shameful.
Eh. Stronger union representation is way more important
It’s not shameful to acknowledge audiences’ well-earned skepticism over digital effects. How so many big-budget films have such terrible CGI in this day and age, with the computer processing power at filmmakers’ disposal, is baffling. With respect to Beetlejuice specifically, the arts and crafts feel of the miniature town he lived in was a big part of the charm.
The problem isn’t computer processing power, it’s a combination of where VFX work comes in the production process and studios and directors treating VFX work as if it isn’t real labor with real costs. And the ongoing “we did it all practically, not a green screen in sight” scam contributes to this.You notice the bad VFX, but there is far more high-quality digital VFX work that you never notice, in many case deliberately swept under the rug to the point where studios will even key out the green screens in promotional behind-the-scenes footage.I already posted this elsewhere in these comments but this is the first in an excellent series of videos outlining the con job studios are pulling, and how it demeans a lot of very talented artists.
for all the digital post-production and VFX workers who worked impossibly long hours to help make the supposedly “all practical” and “no CGI” production look as good as it does. Tissues are in aisle 4.
Aren’t we still suppose to be hating her because she said the writers in that kinda shitty Wednesday show sucked?
I like to imagine that Jenna Ortega is now feuding with Millie Bobby Brown about which one is Winona Ryder’s favorite fake daughter