Believe it or not, Warner Bros. has been internally developing a sequel to Tim Burton‘s 1988 Beetlejuice for well over a decade. Shit, there were even plans for the title character to sip piña coladas in Hawaii. The closest it has come to realization was when Seth Grahame-Smith completed his screenplay and turned it into Warners, and then, around the same time, chatter started heating up from all of the original cast and crew including Burton, star Michael Keaton and even Winona Ryder. Over the past few years there’s been conflicting reports, and even the aforementioned stars have exhumed confidence, only to quickly backtrack on their comments (there’s an absurd timeline here).

Anyways, the last we heard was earlier this month when a site had quoted Burton as saying that the Beetlejuice sequel was “a go and has been approved by the Warner Bros. team,” further adding, “we have talked with the cast members we wanted for the film and they are all on board, this includes both Winona and Michael.” This was shot down a day later when a rep told the site: “Tim’s focus is entirely on Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children set for a September 30, 2016 release and developing Dumbo.”

While this is true, we’re hearing that the continual hold up was actual due to Keaton’s return to super stardom. In short, you can thank Birdman and Spotlight for the delay. The proverbial ball was pushed back uphill when Keaton was nominated at last year’s Oscars for for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” for his portrayal of Riggan in Birdman.

Allegedly, Burton has a small window to make a Beetlejuice sequel happen, and Keaton is dragging his feet due to him having a renaissance in his career. What we’re being told is that Burton has decided to “move on” and has enlisted his regular partner in crime, Johnny Depp, to fill the shoes of the “Ghost with the most.”

This makes a whole lot of sense considering that, since Depp appeared in Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, he’s gone on to collaborate with the Gothic filmmaker in Ed Wood, Sleep Hollow, From Hell, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Dark Shadows and even Alice in Wonderland.

Allegedly, Depp is boasting his performance as Guy Lapointe in Kevin Smith’s Tusk, and plans to deliver a similar style, while also adding a cockney accent to his  interpretation of Beetlejuice.

With an April 1, 2018 release date slated, Burton is also said to still be interested in helming Candyland, the adaptation of the popular board game, as well as Hot Topic: The Movie and Little Shop of Horrors.