Mentioned in a Deadline story is the news that writers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith — the latter of whom wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter — will be working on a Beetlejuice sequel for Warner Bros. The screenwriting duo has signed a two-year, first-look producing deal with the studio.

They’ve been tasked with rebooting the original, but will do so “by advancing the storyline of the original.” I think I have some idea of what that might mean; how they’ll build from the original is something I can’t figure out. We know that Grahame-Smith has been assigned two scripts to write, and this could be one of them. This development is based on Grahame-Smith writing the screenplay for Dark Shadows, which is directed by Beetlejuice‘s Tim Burton. Burton also produced the film version of Vampire Hunter, so the connections are almost impossible to deny.

A sequel to Beetlejuice is not something that I’ve ever fully expected to hear about, since the original is pretty self-contained; no room is left open for a follow-up, as far as I can remember. (I haven’t seen it in several years, so forgive me if I’m forgetting something crucial.) This isn’t something that I would be totally opposed to — I like the first film well enough, but there’s no attachment that would make me frustrated with a new film. The potential writer has me a little ambivalent, as he hasn’t crafted anything at this point in his career that excites me. Then again, almost everything of his is heavily reliant on the material of someone else; maybe he can do some nice things when allowed to craft more original material. Even though this, you know, is a sequel.

Would you be interested in a Beetlejuice sequel? Do you think that Burton will return? How does this writing team being involved make you feel?