Will a 'Beetlejuice 2' Ever Happen? It's Michael Keaton's Call

If nothing else, it sounds like one developing sequel will get this much right: if you can't get the face of the original back, don't bother making it at all.

David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith have had a "Beetlejuice" sequel on their respective radars for some time. They recently announced that they're working on a script, but they're giving themselves one important rule to follow: no Michael Keaton, no more "Beetlejuice."

Oh, and there's one word they don't want associated with the project, according to ShockTillYouDrop.com.

"We're not remaking 'Beetlejuice.' People have been very angry about that," Katzenberg said to Entertainment Weekly.

"When Warner Bros. came to us about it, we said the only way we'd do it if we got Tim [Burton's] blessing and involvement, and we got that, and the star of the movie has to be Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, and it's a true continuation 26 years later. Not just throwing him in as a cameo going, 'Hey, it's me. I endorse this movie.' We're not there yet [with Keaton] because we don't have a film to present to him." 

Neck-and-neck with probably only Burton's 1989 "Batman," it's probably Keaton's most iconic role. The movie also was a fairly early blockbuster for Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, and was in instance in which the eyes of the world were trained on Winona Ryder too long for her to steal anything. But a "Beetlejuice" sequel has a somewhat interesting, dubious history.

At one point, it was kinda-sorta offered as a writing project to Kevin Smith, according to the "Red State" director. As Smith recounted in "An Evening With Kevin Smith," he was two movies into his directing career when he met with Paramount Pictures executives one fateful day. "Clerks" had been an unlikely success that made the world take notice that he was an indie darling on the rises. "Mallrats" had been a critical failure that Smith himself loves, but that he still pokes fun at to this day.

Smith claims that Paramount executives had some writing projects they hoped he would consider. One was adapting the beloved "The Outer Limits" episode "The Architects of Fear" (ironically, comparable to what later became "Wag The Dog.") The one he famously accepted briefly was writing a "Superman" reboot to be produced by Jon Peters - which, for those of you playing "Six Degrees of Tim Burton," it's widely believed Smith was eventually cast off from when the studio brought in Burton to direct and Burton demanded he work with his own select people.

But the third project? Something Smith claims was called "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian."

"Didn't we say everything we needed to say with the first 'Beetlejuice?' Must we go tropical?" Smith quipped in "Evening."

Not to demean the second-greatest live-action Batman there's ever been, but it's not like Keaton's been notoriously busy these days.