Winona Ryder Arrives in London for Beetlejuice 2 Premiere

Winona Ryder and Jenna Coleman looked in good spirits as they arrived at The Corinthia Hotel in London on Thursday ahead of their new movie Beetlejuice 2 premiere in the UK. 

The Stranger Things actress, 52, and her co-star, 21, waved to fans as they headed inside their hotel after landing from Venice following the 81st Film Festival. 

Winona kept a low key figure under a blue bucket hat and sunglasses and wore a large pair of headphones around her neck following the flight. 

She cut a smart figure in an oversized navy blazer, matching trousers and trainers as she was guided inside by her security team. 

Meanwhile Wednesday star Jenna looked effortlessly stylish in a white and black striped cardigan which she teamed with blue denim jeans. 

Winona Ryder looked in good as she arrived at The Corinthia Hotel in London on Thursday ahead of her new movie Beetlejuice Beetlejuice premiere in the UK

Winona Ryder looked in good as she arrived at The Corinthia Hotel in London on Thursday ahead of her new movie Beetlejuice Beetlejuice premiere in the UK

Meanwhile Wednesday star Jenna, 21, looked effortlessly stylish in a white and black striped cardigan which she teamed with blue denim jeans

Meanwhile Wednesday star Jenna, 21, looked effortlessly stylish in a white and black striped cardigan which she teamed with blue denim jeans

Leaving her long straight tresses loose, the actress toted her belongings around in a black handbag and carried an eye catching red coat over her arm. 

Meanwhile Justin Theroux cut a casual figure in a grey jumper and a baseball cap as he stopped to sign autographs for waiting fans. 

Director Tim Burton darted for the hotel entrance while carrying a large backpack following the flight while his partner Monica Bellucci paused to greet fans. 

Monica looked incredible in a white shirt which she donned under a black waistcoat and matching trousers. 

It comes after the Beetlejuice sequel stars were spotted arriving at Venice’s Marco Polo airport to jet out of the country just one day after hitting the red carpet at the cities film festival.  

Hitting the star-studded red carpet, Winona passed the baton to Jenna as they posed together at their latest film premiere Beetlejuice 2.

Winona, who starred in the original movie in 1988 when she was 16-years-old, has reprised her role as Lydia in Tim Burton‘s Beetlejuice sequel while Jenna, portrays her daughter Astrid Deetz. 

Winona cut a stylish figure in a black cropped blazer and waistcoat which she wore over a white shirt and a dramatic netted flood length skirt.

The Stranger Things actress, 52, waved to fans as she headed inside the casts hotel after landing from Venice following the 81st Film Festival

The Stranger Things actress, 52, waved to fans as she headed inside the casts hotel after landing from Venice following the 81st Film Festival

Leaving her long straight tresses loose, the actress toted her belongings around in a black handbag and carried an eye catching red coat over her arm

Leaving her long straight tresses loose, the actress toted her belongings around in a black handbag and carried an eye catching red coat over her arm

Meanwhile Justin Theroux cut a casual figure in a grey jumper and a baseball cap as he stopped to sign autographs for waiting fans

Meanwhile Justin Theroux cut a casual figure in a grey jumper and a baseball cap as he stopped to sign autographs for waiting fans

Director Tim Burton darted for the hotel entrance while carrying a large backpack following the flight while his partner Monica Bellucci paused to greet fans

Director Tim Burton darted for the hotel entrance while carrying a large backpack following the flight while his partner Monica Bellucci paused to greet fans

Monica looked incredible in a white shirt which she donned under a black waistcoat and matching trousers

Monica looked incredible in a white shirt which she donned under a black waistcoat and matching trousers

Monica beamed as she signed fans Beetlejuice posters

Monica beamed as she signed fans Beetlejuice posters 

It comes after the Beetlejuice sequel stars were spotted arriving at Venice's Marco Polo airport to jet out of the country just one day after hitting the red carpet at the cities film festival

It comes after the Beetlejuice sequel stars were spotted arriving at Venice’s Marco Polo airport to jet out of the country just one day after hitting the red carpet at the cities film festival 

Styling her dark tresses in a neat up do, she beamed for photos as she wrapped an arm around Jenna who put on a daring display in a red cut-out gown.

Jenna looked incredibly glamorous as she went braless under the ruffled thin-strapped ensemble which she teamed with towering heels and a dazzling necklace. 

The co-stars were all smiles as they walked the red carpet together before joining the rest of the cast for a group snap ahead of the premiere. 

Jenna previously said of working with Winona: ‘She was so warm and welcoming and kind and inviting right from the jump, and I couldn’t be more grateful,’ she told the New York Times.

‘It was at a time where my career was taking a different turn, and I didn’t realize that I needed that from somebody who could relate, but I did,’ she said, adding that she was in a ‘transformative’ period in her life after shooting to overnight superstardom on Netflix’s Wednesday.

Previously Winona admitted she found it ‘hard to imagine’ a sequel of the hit movie as she had imagined her character being ‘alone’ in an ‘attic’.

She told Slash Film: ‘I think certainly, I never pictured Lydia either having children or in any type of relationship. I just always thought she was just probably in her own world as she got older. Just sort of in the attic and happy, but alone.’

Michael Keaton, 72, and Tim have reunited in the sequel to the 1988 comedy classic which sees him reprise his role as the titular foul-mouthed ghost. 

Years have passed since the events of the original film, and now Lydia Deetz (Winona) is a mother to a teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna). 

Tim revealed he had considered retiring from film-making after the disappointing reception of his live-action big budget Dumbo film for Disney.

Hitting the star-studded red carpet, Winona passed the baton to Jenna as they posed together at their latest film premiere Beetlejuice 2

Hitting the star-studded red carpet, Winona passed the baton to Jenna as they posed together at their latest film premiere Beetlejuice 2 

A synopsis of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reads: 'Three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River after an unexpected family tragedy'

A synopsis of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reads: ‘Three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River after an unexpected family tragedy’

The cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice descended onto the carpet (pictured L-R: Catherine O'Hara, Willem Dafoe, Michael Keaton, Monica Belluci, Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux and Arthur Conti)

The cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice descended onto the carpet (pictured L-R: Catherine O’Hara, Willem Dafoe, Michael Keaton, Monica Belluci, Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux and Arthur Conti)

But he was reinvigorated after making Wednesday, the Addams family spin-off, for Netflix last year. 

He said: ‘The past few years I got a bit disillusioned with the film industry you might say. I just realised if I want to do anything else again I will do it from my heart, it has to be something that I want to do.

‘Winona and Michael and I would talk every few years, talk about doing Beetlejuice but I did get re-energised with Wednesday. Walking the Carpathian mountains in Romania does something to a person.’

He added that he had not watched the original film before starting to film the sequel, but had hoped to stay true to its spirit. 

Jenna said that she had joined a ‘team of giants’ on the film and added: ‘For me it was about making sure that I wasn’t ripping off Winona’s work back in the day, and making something new.’ 

Winona said: ‘I was so thrilled to be with everyone again. It was such a special experience. My love and trust for Tim runs so deep. There is a sense of playfulness where you try things and you know that if it’s bad, he won’t use it.’

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review: Tim Burton’s sequel is unable to pull off the same camp, vampy spirit as its predecessor, writes BRIAN VINER 

Rating:

How dispiritingly apt it is in this cinematic universe of sequels and franchises that the picture chosen to open the world’s most venerable film festival should be Tim Burton’s follow-up to his 1988 hit Beetlejuice, long-awaited by just about nobody. Nobody I know, anyway.

The 81st Venice Film Festival opened last night with an impressive cluster of stars on the red carpet, but the movie they were here to celebrate – Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – is not quite worthy of the honour.

The 1988 original was a comedy-horror classic, which to paraphrase the title of one of the decade’s best-known songs, showed that some ghouls just want to have fun.

It was a further indication after Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) that Burton, then still in his mid-twenties, had an outsize imagination. And a couple of years later the point was reinforced by the gloriously weird Edward Scissorhands (1990).

But the first Beetlejuice was very much of its time: a camp, vampy, Reagan-era mickey-take of yuppies and consumerism. Hard as screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar strain to imbue this sequel with the same spirit, they don’t really pull it off.

Pictured: Willem DaFoe in a scene from 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice'

Pictured: Willem DaFoe in a scene from ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’

Actress Jenna Ortega starring in a scene from 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice'

Actress Jenna Ortega starring in a scene from ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’

Winona Ryder, still in her teens when she appeared in Beetlejuice (and Edward Scissorhands), reprises her role as Lydia Deetz. 

The teenage goth is a middle-aged widow now, a distant mother to moody Astrid (Jenna Ortega) and host psychic of a popular TV show called Ghost House, which is produced by her creepy boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux).

After Lydia learns from her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara, another 1988 original) that her father has been eaten by a shark, the family gathers for the funeral back in the picture-postcard New England town of Winter River and Rory prepares a singularly ill-timed proposal of marriage.

But in the meantime, the decidedly dead demon Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice and extravagantly played once again by Michael Keaton) has designs on the grown-up and very much alive Lydia who, you might remember, he tried to trick into marrying him all those decades ago – in the days when nobody raised much of an eyebrow at a lustful older man, deceased or not, preying on a schoolgirl as a premise for comedy.

Just as he did in 1988, Burton has oodles of fun with the great hereafter. The Afterlife Call Centre is staffed by a motley collection of spooks, while a deceased actor (Willem Dafoe) playing the part of a detective (a recurring joke that recurringly falls flat) runs the Afterlife Crime Unit. 

He instructs his wraiths to ‘leave no gravestone unturned’ in pursuit of the woman Betelgeuse actually did end up marrying, the psychotic leader of a soul-sucking death cult called Dolores (Monica Bellucci), who now wants him back.

The cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 28

The cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 28

A screengrab from the 1988 film Beetlejuice directed by Tim Burton

A screengrab from the 1988 film Beetlejuice directed by Tim Burton 

Michael Keaton in the original film Beetlejuice from 1988

Michael Keaton in the original film Beetlejuice from 1988 

While all this is going on, young Astrid takes a shine to a nice boy, Jeremy (played by Arthur Conti, Tom Conti’s grandson) but of course, nothing in Winter River is quite as it seems and before long she too is tottering on the precipice of the great beyond.

As Astrid, Ortega gives a very appealing performance and in terms of her career this film, however it fares at the box office, seems likely to sound whatever might be the opposite of a death knell. 

The wildly successful Netflix series Wednesday, The Addams Family spin-off, made her a small-screen star. This, following her appearances in three of the Scream slasher movies, should cement her stardom on the silver screen. She might want to branch out from the kicking-the-bucket genre but I guess that’s up to her.

In its favour, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice lasts a sensible hour and 45 minutes and a cracking retro soundtrack includes the Bee Gees singing Tragedy as well as the Jimmy Webb classic MacArthur Park. But it too often feels more like an assembly of macabre ideas from Burton’s undeniably fertile mind than a coherent film.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens across the UK on September 6.

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