Film editor Jay Prychidny on the ‘fever dream’ of ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’: It’s ‘definitely a mind-blowing experience’
As a huge fan of the first “Beetlejuice” (1988), getting the opportunity to work as the film editor on the 2024 sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was “definitely a mind-blowing experience all the way through,” declares Jay Prychidny. “Is this just a fever dream that’s happening?” he recalls thinking at the time. “Tim Burton was an iconic director [and] just the prospect of working on a sequel to what was my favorite movie as a kid was unbelievable.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
The central figure of the film, whom Prychidny likens to a “Looney Tunes character,” is once again played by Michael Keaton. The film editor conferred with Burton about whether he saw the “cartoonish, almost ridiculous, over the top” nature of “Beetlejuice” from the first film as being “part of the language” of the character today, and he remembers the director replying, “Oh, yeah, absolutely.”
Another aspect of the character that Prychidny never waned “to lose sight of” in the editing process is that “he is a demon and he does have a real malevolence to him,” so the goal was to not let Beetlejuice “become too much of a pure parody of himself.” For Prychidny, it was about “finding the opportunities to push it in that more extreme anarchic kind of direction.”
SEE Box office: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ revives movie theaters with $145 million global opening
Some of the plot of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” takes place in the Afterlife, and those scenes had their own challenges in terms of editing. As Prychidny explains, “They are inspired by Beetlejuice and his vibe and his ability to kind of snap his fingers [and alter reality]. And so for me, that translated to these very abrupt, almost very shocking, jumps … The more we played with that, the more it kind of felt that that was the editing language for that part of this movie.”
The “MacArthur Park” musical moment in the church wasn’t actually in “the original version of the script that I read,” he reveals. “There was no lip sync sequence at all, and the whole wedding scene was just dialogue and action and stuff. And then, at a certain point, Tim just said, ‘No, this whole scene is just going to be the song.'” From Prychidny’s standpoint, “That sequence editorially was actually the most challenging” and involved large amounts of “hair pulling” to get it right.
Also in our exclusive video interview, Prychidny talks about working with Jenna Ortega again after “Wednesday” and “Scream VI,” whether the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” actors engaged in any improv on set, and if there are any fully deleted scenes from this project.
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions