For those of you standing up while reading this, you might want to sit down, and for those of you sitting, well…um, good. You just keep doing that. Now, we all know that Hollywood prefers to release new and innovative ideas on an almost exclusive basis, but in this case, they have taken a deep breath, joined their hands collectively, and have decided to make (I truly thought I’d never see the day) a sequel. All kidding aside, though, if Hollywood is going continue beating up their existing I.P.’s for lunch money, this is one of their better ones to go after.

The original Beetlejuice does leave our titular character in a waiting room, so it stands to reason that he might someday leave that waiting room and another story could be told. Certainly, with only two trailers, one cannot truly tell whether or not the film will be any good, but this one seems like it has a few things going for it when you get past all of the easter eggs and callbacks. For starters, we have a new perspective, as this story will center around Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) in her adult years and her daughter Wednesday Add--er, Astrid (Jenna Ortega). For those of you out there puffing out your chests and insisting that the first movie centered around her too, I would humbly remind you that Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis were that leads of that film, and Ryder’s strange and unusual (hey, look, a throwback, everyone!) character was a part of THEIR story. Anyhoo, we have some new points of view now, which is always fine and dandy, but the real juice (don’t roll your eyes at me) is in the return of Michael Keaton.

From what I can tell from the trailer, we seem to be getting more of Keaton this time around, as he is only in a small portion of the original film. His presence and the threat of it is always looming, but we spend way more time with The Maitlands and The Deetzes than we do with him. With more of an active role in the sequel, this will hopefully give Keaton the chance to travel down different avenues of hamminess and excess. The scene with him moonlighting as a psychiatrist looks fun, so we’ve got that going for us. Plus, it looks like we might be taking a deeper dive into the afterlife beyond waiting rooms and smoky offices. I still don’t understand what the heck Sandworms are or where they come from. I think Beetlejuice mentioned Saturn in the first film, and, hey, why not? One of the bigger questions we will be on the lookout for is, how will the film explain the absence of the Maitlands in this one? As you will recall, they are bound to their house, so something major must have happened between 1989 and now since it's very unlikely Baldwin and Davis will be reprising their roles as unaging ghosts. 

The first Beetlejuice was and is a wonderfully disgusting film that (at the time) could not be likened to anything else that had been produced by Hollywood, and while it would have been perfectly fine for it to have been a one-and-done deal, I can’t help but wonder if maybe they, the filmmakers, have a few more tricks up their sleeves. In any event, it’s always fun to see Michael Keaton ply his craft, so at least we’ve got that going for us.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice hits theatres on September 6!