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As he brings back Beetlejuice on screen this year, Tim Burton remembers the time when he was one of the few to make superhero films, in his own way. In the late 1980s, he reinvented Batman and even offered it a sequel in 1992, before considering tackling Superman (in a cursed film that became a cult classic, starring Nicolas Cage, which never saw the light of day). However, while Hollywood was in the midst of the superhero era, Tim Burton don't imagine going back to the genre:
“For now, I would say no.” he confides in Variety. “I approach my job from different points of view depending on the times, so I can't say 'more never'. But at the moment, it's not something that interests me.”
What puts off Tim Burtonit is the idea of a connected franchise, where several films intersect. The filmmaker, himself, prefers to innovate and shake up the lines of the 7th art:
“I was lucky because at the time there was no such thing as a franchise. So Batman was an experimental film in a way. It was a departure from what you might think of as a superhero film. So you didn't hear that kind of commentary (about thinking about making a franchise) from the studios. And because we were filming in England, we were far away. We could really focus on the film and not really think about these things that they think about now before they even make the film…”
Moreover, when Warner Bros. ordered it Batman Returns, Tim Burton explains that he did not see this second part as a sequel: “I wasn't really interested in doing a sequel. I just liked The Penguin and Catwoman, and that gave me some energy. That's when we started hearing the word franchise. That's when the studio started asking me, “What's that black thing coming out of the Penguin's mouth?” That was the first time I felt the cold breath of this new mindset..”
Beetlejuice 2 will be released in theaters on September 11, 2024.