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Recently, an article published by Insider the Magic with the headline, “Willem Dafoe officially pronounced “Dead” after Tim Burton movie wraps,” led to claims that Dafoe had died. However, the inside of the article actually deals with the upcoming movie Beetlejuice 2, where four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe will play the role of a dead man, making the title deceptive.
In the dark comedy scheduled for a September 2024 release, Dafoe will enact the role of a dead “B-movie action star” who finds his new calling as a police detective in the afterlife, as per Indie Wire. So, Willem Dafoe is not dead in real life, just on reel.
All you need to know about Willem Dafoe’s ‘Beetlejuice 2’ character and more
Actor Willem Dafoe will be playing the role of a dead man turned ghost in the long-anticipated sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 movie Beetlejuice. Titled Beetlejuice 2, the film will also star Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, and Jenna Ortega (of Netflix’s Wednesday fame), alongside the existing cast from three decades back – Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara.
According to Dafoe’s statement to Variety, his character has a “meta nod to old-school Hollywood horror.” He further mentioned how he played “a police officer in the afterlife,” meaning he was “a dead person.”
“And in life, I was a B-movie action star, but I had an accident and that’s what sent me to the other side. But because of my skills, I became a detective character in the afterlife. So, that’s my job. But it’s colored by the fact of who I was [when I was alive]: a B movie action star,” he added.
Dafoe also confirmed to the news outlet that he hadn’t seen the film after the shooting; however, he confessed the role was fun to play. Previously, Keaton, who plays the titular role, also acknowledged to Empire Magazine that filming for Beetlejuice 2 was “the most f*cking fun…it’s so great” and was exactly like the experience of shooting the prequel.
For those uninitiated, Beetlejuice had an intriguing plot of a fantasy horror comedy starring Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as deceased newlyweds whose spirits remain stuck in their countryside mansion and haunt the new residents.
When a new couple, played by Catherine O’Hara and Jeffrey Jones, buys the house and moves in with their teenage daughter Winona Ryder, “a self-proclaimed bio-exorcist” aka Keaton’s Beetlejuice, is summoned to help scare the ghosts away, as per Yahoo! News.
According to Inside the Magic, the film had its inception in May but got interrupted in mid-July due to the SAG-AFTRA strike and was “less than two days away from completion,” as per the statements of Tim Burton back then. However, after the strike ended, it finished filming and is now in its post-production stage.
Willem Dafoe is known for his exemplary roles in the 1988 Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, the 2017 The Florida Project, and the superhero film franchises Spider-Man and Aquaman.
