Sequels, Oscar bait, living legends and a Golden Lion dominate the starry 81st Venice International Film Festival which opens Wednesday night with the out-of-competition, world premiere of Tim Burton’s many, many decades later sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

In attendance, veterans from the 1988 hit Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara, alongside Monica Bellucci, Justin Theroux and Jenna Ortega who stars in Burton’s “Wednesday” series.

Venice marks the unofficial start of awards season, a many-months’ march to the Oscar podium next March.  Here, the first batch of hopefuls are seen – to either survive with positive attention and all-important buzz or be buried in boos, pans and disappointment.

Along with its opening mainstream Hollywood comedy, the festival has two other high profile commercial vehicles: the George Clooney-Brad Pitt comic rivalry of “Wolfs” and Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in another sequel, “Joker: Folie à Deux,” directed again by Todd Phillips.  Phoenix won a Best Actor Oscar for “Joker” which also world premiered at the 76th Venice festival. This “Folie” however is a musical. Set in an asylum.

Daniel Craig courts controversy as the star of “Queer,” Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of a William S. Burroughs’ novel. Craig’s drug addict is struggling with withdrawal in Mexico City while sparking to an American drifter.

Angelina Jolie will be here hoping the third time still charms as the star of Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain’s “Maria,” a look at the tormented life of the legendary American-born opera diva Maria Callas. Larrain’s earlier biopics on “Jackie” (Kennedy) and “Spencer” (Princess Diana) won Best Actress Oscar nominations for, respectively, Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart.

After a pair of English-language shorts, Spain’s Pedro Almodovar teams Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton for his long-awaited feature-length English language debut film, “The Room Next Door.”

Nicole Kidman courts controversy in the thriller “Babygirl,” as an older woman involved in an affair with her much younger intern.

White supremacists are in the news and also the target of Jude Law’s FBI agent in the Canadian entry “The Order.”

Adrien Brody won his Best Actor Oscar as a Holocaust survivor in Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist.” He now stars in Brady Courbet’s Holocaust survivor drama “The Brutalist” opposite Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce and Joe Alwyn.

Kevin Costner world premieres the next installment of his ambitious and controversial Western epic, “Horizon: An American Saga-Chapter Two,” which like the first chapter (now streaming on MAX), is three hours long.

Japan’s revered actor-director-writer Takeshi Kitano, who won the Golden Lion in 1997, returns with “Broken Rage.”

Voting on the 21 films in competition for the Golden Lion, the festival’s top prize, is by the 9-person jury led by France’s legendary Isabelle Huppert. Those honors are awarded Sept. 7, the festival’s closing night.

Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Lady Gaga in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)