Tim Burton has described being “a little bit lost” as a film-maker before returning to his roots with the new, all-star sequel to his 1988 cult horror Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which opens the Venice film festival, features original cast members including Michael Keaton playing the titular ghoul, Catherine O’Hara, and Winona Ryder as Lydia – now mother to her own sullen teen, played by Jenna Ortega.
“Over the past few years, I got a little bit disillusioned with the movie industry. I sort of lost myself,” Burton said on Wednesday. “I realised the only way to be a success is that I have to love doing it. For this one, I just enjoyed and loved making it.
“I was not out to do a big sequel for money. I wanted to make this for very personal reasons.”
The film reunites audiences with the Deetz family. Lydia, now the host of a cheesy ghost-hunting show, returns to the haunted Winter River home with her stepmother, Delia (O’Hara), and her surly daughter, Astrid, who opens a portal to the afterlife.
Ryder, who was 15 when she first played Lydia, said returning to Beetlejuice was “one of the more special experiences of my life”. “My love and trust for Tim runs so deep and there was a sense of a certain playfulness and readiness to try things,” she added. “You feel so safe in nonsense, but you also feel just completely free.”
Ryder also told Keaton one of her favourite parts “was getting to stare into your eyes again”.
Asked how he approached his character’s evolution after more than three decades, Keaton joked: “As suave and sensitive as [Beetlejuice] was in the first, I think he’s even more so in this one. Just his general caring nature and his sense of social mores and his political correctness.”
Burton said while he had been thinking of a sequel for some time, making Wednesday “re-energised” him. “And meeting [Wednesday star] Jenna obviously was such an important thing for me.
“Working with her and just thinking about the Lydia character and what happened to her 35 years later, and thinking about my own life, about what happened to get kids or relationships.”
Ortega said she “looked up to a lot of this cast” and said she had to ensure she “wasn’t ripping off Winona’s work from back in the day … but still pooling aspects that make [the characters] similar”.
Among the other newcomers to Beetlejuice are Justin Theroux, who plays Lydia’s sleazy boyfriend and manager, Willem Dafoe as a dead police officer, and Monica Bellucci as a soul-sucking demon bent on revenge against her ex, Beetlejuice.
The film is premiering out of competition at the 81st edition of the film festival, which opened to much anticipation on Wednesday. Hollywood names including George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga are all expected to walk the red carpet over the next 11 days.
Speaking of the event, members of the festival jury, including the chair, Isabelle Huppert, expressed concerns over the “very weak” state of contemporary cinema. “I’m worried about the things everyone is worried about. Making sure that cinema continues to live because it is very weak now,” Huppert told the press.
“It’s very difficult to make a film. A film is not just an individual effort; it’s really something we deliver to the world. So I am concerned about whether our world will still connect with people. That’s why the Venice film festival is necessary.”
The American filmmaker Debra Granik said she was “relieved” to hear Huppert address the “elephant in the room”.
“We understand that the generations combined in this room need this [festival] to continue telling the stories that aren’t covered in the mainstream,” Granik said. “Festivals are now maybe festivals of defiance. Going against the grain.”
Meanwhile, before receiving the festival’s prestigious Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement, Sigourney Weaver became teary when discussing the role of her acting in empowering women – including the US presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.
“To think for one moment that my work would have anything to do with her rise makes me very happy,” Weaver said. “Because it’s true. I have so many women who come and thank me.”
The three-time Oscar nominee also reflected on Hollywood’s evolving approach to ageing actors. “Suddenly, I think they had decided somehow that older women could actually play interesting characters and started writing a lot of older female characters.
“Suddenly, we stopped being a joke and a mother-in-law, and we started to be real people because actually, a lot of our audience are real people.”