“It’s showtime!” The duo of David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith have uttered Beetlejuice’s name three times to summon the ghoul for a sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 hit Beetlejuice. This will not be a remake of the original but rather a reboot of the story with a new installment.
Deadline reports that KatzSmith Productions have signed a feature producing deal with Warner Bros and Beetlejuice is at the top of their list of potential projects. Grahame-Smith had worked with the studio when writing the screenplay for Burton’s big screen adaptation of Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp.
Warner Bros Production President Greg Silverman talks about how this deal came about:
“We first got to know Seth through his fantastic work on Dark Shadows, and it immediately became a priority to expand our relationship with him. Seth introduced us to David, who greatly impresses us with the vision for KatzSmith from the very first meeting. We firmly believe in their talents and are extremely excited to welcome them to the Warners family.”
Grahame-Smith has written best-sellers Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and will likely write this Beetlejuice sequel. KatzSmith was born out of a partnership while Grahame-Smith and Katzenberg worked at CBS on a webseries by Michael Cera and Clarke Duke. The pair then went on to produce, write, and direct the MTV series The Hard Times of RJ Berger.
Michael Keaton starred in the original Beetlejuice as the ghoul hired by a dead couple, played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, to “bio-exorcise” the living from their house.