Movies
Tim Burton On Potential Return To ‘Beetlejuice’
Last fall it was announced that Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg were attached to develop a new Beetlejuice. MTV caught up with original director Tim Burton who reveals that he’s actually considering returning to the so-to-be franchise that starred Michael Keaton as the title character.
“Yes,” Burton boldly stated when asked if he’d consider doing another Beetlejuice. “I love that character, and Michael [Keaton] is so great in it. I always think about how great and fun that character was, so I just said to [“Vampire Hunter” writer] Seth [Grahame-Smith], “If you have some idea about it, go for it, and then I’ll look at it freshly.” In the past, I tried some things, but that was way back when. He seemed really excited about it.” In speaking of running his ideas by Burton, he explained, “No. I told him to try some stuff, but he hasn’t come back to me yet. Michael was so great in it. I’m sure he’d strangely tap right back into it.”
The 1988 Tim Burton-directed hit starred Michael Keaton as a ghoul hired by a recently deceased couple to drive the new owners out of their house. Burton and Keaton made the movie while they were working on the studio’s first Batman film, which was released the following year.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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