Michael Keaton discusses Beetlejuice's gender ahead of 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' release

Michael Keaton is talking about his iconic character Beetlejuice’s gender ahead of the upcoming sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Keaton first played the character in 1988’s Beetlejuice, directed by Tim Burton.

For the sequel, the Oscar-nominated actor wanted to cut back on his screen time, despite having only 17 minutes of screen time in the original movie.

“The idea was, no, no, no, you can’t load it up with Beetlejuice, that’ll kill it,” he told GQ.

He explained, “I think the Beetlejuice character doesn’t drive the story as much as he did in the first one. He’s more part of the storyline in this one as opposed to the first one, which is a case of, this thing comes in and drives the movie a little bit.”

Keaton also wanted to prevent any changes to Beetlejuice’s characters to align him with 2024.

He said: “He’s a thing. He’s more of a thing than a he or a she, he’s more of an it. And I’m not saying ‘it’ to be politically correct. I just viewed it as a force more than anything. I mean, there’s definitely strong male energy, like stupid male energy, which I love.”

Concluding his remarks, Michael Keaton said, “You don’t want to touch that because it’s not like you go, ‘Well, it’s a new year and this thing would now act like that.’”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to hit theaters on September 6, 2024.