Michael Keaton found the “merchandising” of Beetlejuice “off-putting”
Michael Keaton had to find his way back to Beetlejuice past all the coffee mugs and golf club covers
Aux News Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice might have some of the most recognizable characters and distinctive aesthetics of the ’80s, but Michael Keaton didn’t set out to make some sort of two-dimensional recurring Saturday Night Live character. He created the character of Betelgeuse for the love of the art, man. Betelgeuse was comic but also awful, a true whirling dervish of a ghoul, and now he’s a Halloween costume. It’s pretty cool to embody something so enduring and iconic, but it also presented challenges when Keaton returned to film the sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which premieres September 6.
“There’s been so much merchandising of it, I had to drop back to where it started,” Keaton tells Empire magazine in a new profile for the film. “I had to go, ‘What was my unusual imagination even thinking about when I was developing it in the first place?’ As opposed to seeing a coffee mug or a golf-club cover [adorned with Betelgeuse’s face].” Moving past the pop culture idea of Betelgeuse “was fucking weird,” the actor admits. “To be honest with you—I’m being very frank—it was off-putting, to look and go, ‘I don’t want to look like all these little things, fuck that—what was the thing that started this?’”
Perhaps the idea that the weird world of Beetlejuice had become so commercialized is why Keaton resisted making a sequel for so long. Director Tim Burton previously said his star “had no burning desire to do” a sequel “unless it felt right,” so obviously, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice felt pretty right to him. Burton told Entertainment Weekly the “back-to-basics, handmade quality” of the movie reenergized his own love of filmmaking, and Keaton “just got back into it. It was kind of scary for somebody who was maybe not that overly interested in doing it. It was such a beautiful thing for me to see all the cast, but he, sort of like demon possession, just went right back into it.”
Now, Keaton is the biggest cheerleader for the sequel, which also stars Winona Rider, Catherine O’Hara, and Jenna Ortega. He’s been raving about it for a while, and continues to do so in his interview with Empire. “I love it,” he gushes. “I absolutely love this thing. And I don’t [usually] talk like that. I unabashedly love this. It was not easy to pull off, and I think we did it in spades.”
39 Comments
Batman is bitching about toy sales? Huh?
When that Batman movie was made, Batman had already been a toy for decades. Keaton knew he was playing a toy. Were there any Beetlejuice toys or lore before the movie was written?
He made Beetlejuice before Batman, which was already a toy for decades before the movie. He also refused to return when Burton declined to direct a third movie. So I’m pretty sure he knew what he was making when he signed on to Batman.
Right, a living cartoon character made by a former Disney artist. He had NO idea it was going to be merchandized? Really?
Hindsight is 20/20.
Christ you’re young and stupid
Batman wasn’t his creation.
He’s mad because he didn’t get Nicholson’s deal to get profit points on merchandising.
yeah, this sequel sounds promising, but will be a handy from a sitting member of the House of Representatives good.
hahaha. Is it good enough to make you dance around just for the purposes of annoying the person behind you after they asked you to stop vaping?
Rate movies by number of fingers used.
I still want a codpiece that makes a honking noise which I grab it. Or when anyone grabs it, really.
So Keaton has returned to the batsuit, and now Betelgeuse. Will we get the Mr. Mom follow-up the world so desperately craves?
Mr. Grandmom, coming in 2025
2025, 2026, whatever it takes.
Night Shift 2: The Early Shift
There is a distinct lack of Mr. Mom Merchandising in this world.
Woobies and Schooner Tuna for all!!!
Gender stereotypes the action figure?
Multiplicity 2: AI Keaton
We’ve all been clamoring for Dream Team 2, where a bunch of elderly mental patients sit around and stare at the wall.
They turned Beetlejuice into a Saturday morning cartoon that ran for 4 seasons and he is upset about coffee mugs and golf club covers?
Didn’t he learn anything from everyone’s favorite Everlasting Know-it-all, Yogurt? It’s all about MERCHANDISING! MERCHANDISING! Come on Keaton, embrace the concept of Beetlejuice the FLAMETHROWER!!!
Congrats on being able to read
Lukewarm take: the Betelgeuse cartoon (not voiced by Keaton) was pretty damn good.
I loved that cartoon!
I saw that before the movie back in the day and it was so weird when I finally saw the movie to go “oohhh he’s the bad guy not just some fun character…”
I don’t read Beetlejuice as the “bad guy” in the movie. Obviously, he’s not a force for good; but he’s just acting according to his demonic nature. I see Otho, a conniving fraud who puts the Maitlands in dire straits, as the actual villain. Something similar to the dynamic of Fagin and Bill Sikes in “Oliver Twist.”
No. It was not.
The intro was pretty damn good. The rest was kind of boring.
On the cartoon, he is spelled Beetlejuice.
Shop till you freak at the spooky boutique!
Did they shoot every interior shot with one light a hundred feet away? What is going on in the interior shots in the trailer, I can’t get over it.
Do they still make these?
The “Well, I attended Juliard…” speech in the original is so inspired and was almost entirely ad-libbed. Keaton designed a lot of the makeup look himself. He really created this character and I can see how it would be odd to have this weird ghost creep turned into endless kids toys and a cartoon. I had forgotten the whole “technically he’s a demon” thing until they said it in the trailer for the sequel and it clicked like “right, Keaton just made him so charismatic that you forget he is ticking off every box in the ‘demonic entity’ list from possession to child abduction.”
The character also committed suicide. He used to be what’s her name’s partner in the first film. I wonder if they address that in the new one at all.
Yes, unlike most of the other dead characters, the way he died wasn’t apparent but the whole “civil service for suicides” thing does suggest it would have been self-inflicted.
I love everything about this film including Keaton but ew don’t refer to your imagination as “unusual” dude… this is coming from a Millennial, the generation where everyone thinks they’re unique/special. Don’t be like that Keaton.
I assume Keaton isn’t including the LJN Nintendo game because that was a masterpiece.
Something terrible can be a masterpiece of terribleness.