Jenna Ortega will play Lydia Deetz's (Winona Ryder) daughter Astrid in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice sequel, and the actress has spoken about joining the cast for the first time on the red carpet of last night's Emmy Awards.
Ortega, who recently dropped out of the next Scream movie, didn't delve into the movie's plot or her character, but did reveal that the long-awaited legacy sequel will favor practical FX over CGI.
"[It's] visually so exciting," Ortega told ET. "Everything is practical, I think we’re not using much CGI so it was satisfying shooting on set.”
Not much to go on, but fans of Burton's original will no doubt be pleased to hear that the sequel won't be a massive CGI-fest.
Michael Keaton will reprise his role as the Ghost With the Most, and he'll be joined by Ryder as Lydia. Both have been spotted in set photos/videos, and a still of Keaton's Betelgeuse recently leaked online before quickly being removed at the request of the studio.
You can check out the recent set videos below.
Keaton spoke about returning as the manic Bio-Exorcist in a recent interview with Empire.
"Beetlejuice is the most f--kin’ fun you can have working. It’s so fun, it’s so great. And you know what it is? We’re doing it exactly like we did the first movie," he says. "There’s a woman in the great waiting room for the afterlife literally with a fishing line – I want people to know this because I love it – tugging on the tail of a cat to make it move."
"[Burton] and I were talking about it years and years ago, never telling anybody," he continued. "I said, ‘if it happens, first of all, we’ve both said we’re doing it many times. We both agreed, if it happens, it has to be done as close to the way we made it the first time. Making stuff up, making stuff happen, improvising and riffing, but literally handmade stuff like people creating things with their hands and building something. F--kin’ great. It’s the most fun I’ve had working on a movie in I can’t tell you how long."
Catherine O'Hara is also set to reprise her role as Lydia's mother, Delia Deetz. Other new cast members include Monica Bellucci as Betelgeuse's wife, Willem Dafoe as an afterlife cop, and Justin Theroux in an undisclosed role.
Wednesday creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar penned the script.
Beetlejuice 2 is set to release in theaters on Sept. 6, 2024.