Beetlejuice…Beetlejuice…Of course, we won’t say it a third time. Legendary gothic filmmaker Tim Burton developed a cult following in his early career, but it wasn’t until the release of the iconic Beetlejuice in 1988 that he was propelled to stardom and became a household name.
Starring Winona Ryder, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Scarlett O’Hara, Jeffrey Jones, and Michael Keaton as the titular ghost with the most, Beetlejuice follows a recently deceased couple trying to scare away the family moving into their beloved home, calling on a little help from the afterlife.
The film became an instant critical and commercial success, with Ve Neill winning an Academy Award for Best Makeup and spawning an animated TV series, video games, and even a Broadway musical. But ever since the release of Beetlejuice, fans have wondered when Beetlejuice 2 would materialize.
Rumors of a Beetlejuice sequel have reared their head every few years before being laid to rest as abruptly as the Deetzes themselves. But in May 2023, Warner Bros announced Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (also known as Beetlejuice 2) making our Millenium.
Each morsel of information has been greeted with sheer elation ever since, from exciting cast returns to quirky new characters, the film’s spooky first poster, and its release date being confirmed as September 6, 2024.
But the film hasn’t been without its hiccups. Production was halted due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes, and there were rumors of friction behind the scenes. But, hey, it wouldn’t be Beetlejuice without a touch of pandemonium.
As we gear up for another dance around the dinner table to Harry Belafonte, here’s everything you need to know about Beetlejuice 2.
Background
Before we delve into Beetlejuice 2, let’s turn on the juice and shake loose your memories of the original. Released in 1988, Tim Burton’s classic ghostly comedy begins with Barbara and Adam Maitland (Davis and Baldwin) deciding to blow off a relaxing vacation in favor of renovating their idyllic country home. A “staycation,” if you will.
On the way to buy supplies, however, the young couple meet their untimely demise when Barbara swerves their car to avoid a dog and plunges them both into a river.
Now roaming the Earth as lost souls, Barbara and Adam don’t immediately realize they’re dead, but little clues such as a lack of reflection and a Handbook for the Recently Deceased turning up give it away just a little.
What drives the message home is Adam trying to exit their home and being met by a desert scene filled with enormous and vicious sandworms, rather than their homely village.
Soon the Maitland home becomes the Deetz abode when former real estate developer Charles Deetz (Jones), his new wife Delia (O’Hara), and teenage daughter Lydia (Ryder) from his first marriage move in and begin adding their postmodern touch to the now outdated home – much to the chagrin of the ghostly Maitlands.
Barbara and Adam consult their ‘caseworker’ Juno (Sylvia Sydney) about how they can get their home back to themselves, and she recommends scaring them away. Once the Maitlands try (and fail), they come across the details of ‘freelance bio-exorcist’ Beetlejuice (Keaton) to help get the job done.
However, it soon becomes clear his particular brand of chaos is far too much for any mortal or immortal soul to handle as he wreaks havoc upon the Deetz’s home, taking a particular interest in Lydia, the only person who can see the spirits.
Following Beetlejuice’s release, film fans almost immediately wanted more and rumors of a sequel ignited. Unfortunately, we were cheated out of Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian – a follow-up that would have seen the titular ghost head to the tropical paradise for mayhem and margaritas – after the script was shelved.
2011 saw Beetlejuice 2 hit the headlines again as Dark Shadows writer Seth Grahame-Smith was hired to create a fresh script for the project.
Five years later, Burton said that he would make a sequel to his cult classic under the ‘right circumstances’ during an interview with Collider, adding: ‘But it’s one of those films where it has to be right. It’s not a kind of a movie that cries out [for a sequel], it’s not the Beetlejuice trilogy. So it’s something that if the elements are right – because I do love the character and Michael’s amazing as that character, so yeah we’ll see. But there’s nothing concrete yet.’
The following year saw another Beetlejuice 2 update when Mike Vukadinovich was hired in late 2017 to rewrite the script, but the excitement ramped up in March 2022 when Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B Entertainment was reported to be heading the project.
Not long after this news broke, Beetlejuice 2 was confirmed, and fans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. Production began on May 10, 2023, but soon halted due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. But with deals tentatively being reached, production resumed and filming wrapped on November 30, with Burton announcing the news in an Instagram post.
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February 2024 kicked off with another exciting update – the project’s official name, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and finally a release date of September 6.
The announcement came with the film’s first poster, which sees a pair of ghostly hands, most likely belonging to Beetlejuice, weighed down by bureaucracy in the afterlife once more as they hold onto a reel of paper with numbers dictating their turn in line to see their case worker, used to reveal the film’s release.
Plot Developments
Of course, the thrill of Beetlejuice 2’s confirmation is shortly followed by fans wondering what the film will be about. So far, synopses of the upcoming flick reveal…It is a sequel to Beetlejuice. (Update, we have an official plot synopsis.)
It seems safe to assume then that the film will follow the events of the first film, with Wednesday star Jenna Ortega joining the cast as Lydia’s daughter.
We could also see some mystery afoot for Beetlejuice and co, with Willem Dafoe providing another new face, playing a deceased cop in the afterlife.
As Beetlejuice focused on Lydia, it seems Beetlejuice 2 could focus on Ortega’s character, with cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos hinting at the importance of family connections and how it influenced his choice to join the project. He told The Wrap: ‘At its heart, Beetlejuice is a story about a family. And now it’s 30 years later and what are the intricacies and the human condition in keeping a family together all that time set in the craziest world possible?’
With Lydia being a teenager in the first film, Beetlejuice 2 is likely to be set 20 or more years in the future if we expect Ortega’s character to also be a teenager. Now that it’s been 30 years since the first film was released, it makes sense that Beetlejuice 2 could follow the same timeline.
Speaking of family, Beetlejuice has expanded his own between now and 1988 with Monica Belluci joining the cast as his wife, though it’s unclear whether the ghostly lovebirds are newlyweds or have been together long-term.
The first film ended with Beetlejuice’s incredibly seedy wedding to Lydia being thwarted at the last minute, and with him desperate to find a wife, it seems likely this could have been a quick run down the aisle.
Casting Details
There are plenty of familiar faces back from beyond the grave for Beetlejuice 2, including Keaton donning his monochrome striped suit again as Beetlejuice.
Speaking to Empire about the making of the film, the legendary actor expressed his love for the series and gave a little hint as to what fans can expect: ‘Beetlejuice is the most fuckin’ fun you can have working. It’s so fun, it’s so great. And you know what it is? We’re doing it exactly like we did the first movie. There’s a woman in the great waiting room for the afterlife literally with a fishing line – I want people to know this because I love it – tugging on the tail of a cat to make it move.’
Catherine O’Hara is also reprising her role as Delia, and revealed it has been ‘crazy and thrilling’ (per People) to film a scene with Keaton, meaning fans will finally see their two larger-than-life characters share the screen – but will she be summoning the demon, or will he have captured her in one of his traps?
She added: ‘I had a little two-person moment with Michael as Beetlejuice. I’d been in the first movie in group scenes with Michael, but in this, I had an actual moment [just the two of us.] And it was just so crazy and thrilling, really to just be face-to-face with Beetlejuice. He looks the same. Beetlejuice has aged very well.’
Stranger Things icon Ryder will also return as Lydia, now a mother herself to Ortega’s as-yet-unnamed daughter. The actress, who also worked with Burton on Edward Scissorhands and Frankenweenie, has addressed the idea of Beetlejuice 2 many times over the years, telling Collider in 2016: ‘There’s something that really resonates with all ages, with that film. It’s interesting. I think it would be great if it happened, if it was the right circumstances. Gosh, you know you’re getting older when they’re making TV shows, sequels or plays for things that you did. It’s very flattering and very humbling, indeed.’
Scream V and VI star Ortega, Irréversible’s Belluci, and Hollywood icon Dafoe aren’t the only new additions to the cast, with American Psycho and Mulholland Drive star Justin Theroux and Pinnochio’s Burn Gorman both appearing in Beetlejuice 2 in undisclosed roles. Unfortunately, Baldwin and Davis have not yet been confirmed to return to Beetlejuice 2 as Adam and Barbara Maitland.
Production Insights
Burton will be back in the director’s chair for Beetlejuice 2, a whopping 35 years since the original film was released. It comes five years since the release of his last feature-length film, a live-action adaptation of Disney’s Dumbo which also starred Keaton as corrupt businessman V. A. Vandevere.
It also marks two years since his smash hit Netflix series Wednesday, with Ortega in the titular role, took the streaming service by storm. In an interview with The Independent, the revered auteur said his work on Beetlejuice 2 reminded him why he became a filmmaker in the first place: ‘I do enjoy all the people I’ve worked with. On this last one, Beetlejuice 2, I really enjoyed it. I tried to strip everything and go back to the basics of working with good people and actors and puppets. It was kind of like going back to why I liked making movies.’
Beetlejuice 2 is based on a screenplay by Wednesday creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, which is based on a story by Seth Grahame-Smith.
Dark Shadows collaborator Grahame-Smith previously said he signed onto the project to make ‘a story that is worthy of us actually doing this for real’ (per Ain’t It Cool News) while also being staunchly adamant that Keaton was not recast for the production and that a sequel would only work if he was involved.
Long-time musical collaborator Danny Elfman will once again work with Burton on the sequel to Beetlejuice after previously lending his talents to The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, and many more of his projects.
Colleen Atwood is the costume designer for the picture, hopefully bringing more iconic looks like the garments served in the original film. She opened up to Screen Rant on how costumes will bridge the gap between Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice 2, sharing: ‘You’re gonna see some old friends in the costume world. There’s a real homage to Beetlejuice, the original, and then you’ll see the journey that those people have made in the 30 years since Beetlejuice, it’s been a while. So, it’s a fun process, I think the audience is gonna love it, it’s really fun.”
Filming began in London in May 2023, with reports specifying crews worked at the Princess Helena College in Preston, Hertfordshire, England, as well as exterior filming in East Corinth, Vermont where the original film’s exterior scenes were shot.
Filming was suspended in July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes and resumed on November 16 in Melrose, Massachusetts. Two weeks later, on November 30, filming wrapped up on Beetlejuice 2 in Vermont.
Fan Expectations
Every few years, when a crudely Photoshopped poster would do the rounds on social media, it was pandemonium – so you can imagine the excitement when Beetlejuice 2 was officially announced.
Only, you don’t need to imagine it, you were there, and what a time to be alive. While waiting for crumbs of information to fall from the production tables, film fans got busy speculating what could have happened in the three decades since we left the characters in the Deetz house – and some of you have dark imaginations.
One of the most heavily speculated Beetlejuice 2 fan theories is that the film will address Beetlejuice’s cause of death. Very little is known about the titular character other than he used to be Juno’s assistant before going freelance, but some fans believe that his death was at his own hands.
This stemmed from little clues in the original film, the first of which saw Delia’s friend Otho (William Glenn Shadix) joke that people who end their own lives become civil servants in the afterlife, something which receptionist Miss Argentina (Patrice Martinez) confirms.
And it just so happens an original script for the first film did confirm the theory that Beetlejuice died by suicide, but could the second Beetlejuice film also address this?
Rumors went wild as Ryder and Ortega were spotted filming a wedding scene, with many wondering exactly who Lydia’s daughter was tying the knot to. In the original film, we almost saw Lydia walk down the aisle with Beetlejuice, so could this be a case of history repeating itself?
Others have speculated that she will get hitched to Filipe Cates’ as-yet-unannounced character, with fans further suggesting that his hair and costuming point to the fact that he is the son of Dafoe’s Actor.
Fans seem to believe that Theroux’s age points to the fact his character is married to Lydia and that he could be the father to her child.
Set photos of a graveyard have sent fans down another dark path, speculating that a character may die in Beetlejuice 2 – but who?
The revelation that this film will focus more on family values suggests it could be a member of Lydia’s family, with some pointing the finger at Lydia herself as it is her mother’s death that is the focal point of Broadway production Beetlejuice: The Musical. If Beetlejuice 2 follows suit, we could see the shocking demise of the first film’s hero.
Another death, or deaths, we could see addressed is Adam and Barbara’s and the popular fan theory that their seemingly accidental crash was murder. After refusing to sell their house multiple times, realtor Jane seems miffed, leading some viewers to believe that she had a hand in their death, which could well be addressed in Beetlejuice 2.
Burton revealed that the notion of what happened to each member of the Deetz family at the end of Beetlejuice stoked another popular fan theory. This, combined with available casting information, has led fans to believe that Charles Deetz will die in Beetlejuice 2. So far, we know Lydia and Delia will both appear, but Charles is absent so far.
At the end of the first movie, we see Beetlejuice waiting in line in the afterlife, and with the poster for Beetlejuice 2 suggesting he’s still holding his ticket, we could see him edging ever closer to the front of the line.
After all that standing by, Beetlejuice is sure to need a vacation, and many fans believe we could see a nod to the fabled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian in the second film.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Trailer and First Look
Update: As of March 21 we got our first peek at the official Beetlejuice 2 trailer. It’s 60 seconds of pure throwbacks as Jenna Ortega’s new character makes her way through familiar locations and set pieces and we get a glimpse of legacy cast members.
Summary
It’s finally happening – the ‘ghost with the most’ is returning to our screens as Beetlejuice 2 wraps production and edges ever closer to its release dates. Years of sparse news and then silence had all but dashed the hopes of a Beetlejuice sequel, so the buzz has been electric yet tentative as fans wondered if this was the real deal.
We finally have an official plot synopsis and Beetlejuice 2 trailer, so we no longer have to resort to relying on obscure quotes in interviews. But it sure has let fans go wild sharing theories as to what madness and mayhem will unfold in the Deetz house a second time around.
With Burton back in the director’s chair surrounded by acting heavyweights Keaton, Ryder, and O’Hara, as well as horror’s rising star Ortega, fans are sure to be in for a frightfully good time after a developmental wait longer than the afterlife.
Beetlejuice 2 (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) is in theaters September 6, 2024. Check out more new horror movies we’re most excited for in 2024.
