BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

THE GHOST WITH THE MOST RETURNS FINALLY - IN BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE

-  DANIEL KRUPA

ALMOST 40 YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE Beetlejuice was eaten by a sandworm on his wedding day. For a long time it felt like it would be his last appearance on the big screen, which always felt... odd.

After all, Tim Burton's movie was a huge hit back in 1988, and work on a sequel began immediately - one infamous draft saw Beetlejuice move to Hawaii and enter an undead surfing contest - but nothing ever materialised, on film at least. There were four seasons of an animated show, a couple of minor videogame appearances, and most recently a short-lived musical on Broadway. By modern standards, that's a meagre offering for such a beloved character.

But it's finally happening, and the task of resurrecting the character and exploring his strange and unusual world in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has fallen to the seasoned writing partnership of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The pair recently experienced tremendous success creating Netflix's mega-hit Wednesday, which Burton also worked on as a director and executive producer.

In fact, it was during production on the show's first season that Burton invited the pair to his trailer late one night to talk about a certain bio-exorcist. That conversation quickly turned into an invitation to Burton's apartment in Bucharest. Unlike other attempts to revive the character, this one gathered momentum rapidly.

"He told us the ideas he wanted in the movie," Gough remembers of those initial meetings. "We went off, crafted a story, did an outline, came back to him, and pitched it. He really liked it. Then we pitched it to Warner Bros. It happened very quickly."

LIFE AFTER THE AFTERLIFE