Original Beetlejuice writer on Beetlejuice 2

Head back to the late 1980s, and Larry Wilson was on his way to becoming a studio executive. He was working as director of development for Walter Hill at the time, but he had an itch to write. And, teaming up with Michael McDowell, the pair penned Beetlejuice, sold it to The Geffen Company, who in turn got Tim Burton interested.

Larry Wilson recalled this in a chat with us, remembering that he'd beforehand given the script to an executive at Universal, who went on to ask him "why are you going to squander [your career] for this piece of shit?"

Wilson had the last laugh there.

Beetlejuice 2has been gathering momentum of late, with Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg working on a screenplay. Tim Burton and Michael Keaton are both mooted to return. It's not the first time a Beetlejuicesequel has been mooted. Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian was developed for a time after the success of the original film. So: has Wilson been involved in both?

Well, when Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian was first talked about a decade or two back, Wilson recalled that "I said to my agent, I think I should probably be writing this! And my agent contacted Warners, and the Warners people back then said 'well we love Larry, but we feel he's too close to the material!'"

And now? "I'm assuming that I'm still too close to the material. But Michael McDowell and I have underlying rights to the characters, so if there is a sequel, it may be the FU money that we all dream about!"

Not that he's averse to the film. "Whatever happens with the sequel, what I want it to be is good. I want it to capture what the original film captured, and that in my mind is really tricky. People have asked me about Beetlejuice and why it has such a peculiar, original energy, and whether it could be recreated. And I don't know. I sometimes describe it as like a great psychedelic album from the 60s that was recorded on four tracks, and you look at it now and wonder how they did it! When people say 'we have 1000 tracks, so we'll do it 1000 times better!'"

Wilson continued: "If it becomes a CGI orgy, or becomes people playing it safe because of demographics, all those things that could happen, I'd rather it didn't happen. But all being said, there does seem to be a lot of serious talk about it. Tim and Michael seem interested, and they'll have the same concerns that I do, I know that".

Larry Wilson is currently in the last hours of funding for his new webseries, Cindy. You can find out about that right here.

And our full interview with Wilson can be found here.

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