Beetlejuice 2 – Release Date, Cast, Director, And More Info
Every so often, a long-presumed dead sequel will suddenly spring from the grave like Michael Keaton's "Ghost With the Most" flying out of his coffin in "Beetlejuice." So it was when "Beetlejuice 2" was announced in 2022 following multiple failed attempts at making a follow-up to Tim Burton's original 1988 supernatural comedy. "Beetlejuice" wasn't Burton's first feature (that would be "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure"), but it was arguably the first "Tim Burton film" that established him as a true stylist. It's also probably the horniest, most foul-mouthed movie to snag a PG rating this side of the invention of the PG-13 — the sort of film you make when you're an outsider hungry to prove yourself and unleash your idiosyncratic, gleefully anti-commercial vision on the industry.
More than 35 years later, Burton has unfortunately become a brand unto himself, his macabre, twisted vision no longer something that makes studios nervous. "Beetlejuice 2" probably isn't going to change that either, not least of all when Burton keeps going around saying things that make him come across as an out-of-touch Boomer. However, he's also talked about wanting to rekindle his old rebellious spirit, and a return to the world of "Beetlejuice" might just be the key to getting at least some of his groove back.
When does Beetlejuice 2 premiere?
The first time Burton tried to make "Beetlejuice 2" was in the 1990s and the result was the notorious "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian" script (which might've not led to a good film, but it certainly would've lent itself to a bizarre and strangely sexual one). He made another go in the 2010s with his "Dark Shadows" writer Seth Grahame-Smith, only for it, too, to peter out in pre-production. Then, just as Burton was, according to him, "a day and a half" away from wrapping filming on the sequel, he had to smack the pause button because the major Hollywood studios couldn't be bothered to work out a fair deal with the actors and writers guilds from the get-go.
Finally, as of November 30, 2023, Burton took to social media to confirm "Beetlejuice 2" had wrapped production. That will certainly come as music to Warner Bros.' ears, given that it's currently facing a potential shortage of films in 2024 in the wake of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes (which, again, was the studios' fault — they f**ked around and got found out). It also means the film should be able to hit its current theatrical release date on September 6, 2024, particularly since Burton's more practical-driven approach to the sequel will allow it to make its way through post-production at a relatively quicker pace.
What are the plot details of Beetlejuice 2?
The original "Beetlejuice" sees the titular character (a self-professed "freelance bio-exorcist") assisting a recently deceased couple in ridding their house of the obnoxious yuppies that have invaded it since their death. Of course, what he really wants is to once again be free to wreak havoc on the world of the living. This would require him to get married, which leads to him nearly wedding Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), the yuppies' lonely and far more sympathetic goth teen daughter. In case you had forgotten, Beetlejuice is the bad guy in the film — something that apparently slipped the mind of the animated "Beetlejuice" series, which saw him and Lydia going on zany adventures together.
While there's little in the way of official plot information for "Beetlejuice 2" at the time of writing, it's been widely reported that Monica Belluci is co-starring as Beetlejuice's wife. That would imply Keaton's mischief-making miscreant has finally found a way to undo his banishment in the sequel, with only Lydia and her own teen daughter (played by Jenna Ortega, who stars in the Burton-directed "Addams Family" series "Wednesday") standing in his way.
Who is in the cast of Beetlejuice 2?
Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, and Monica Belluci are joined in the "Beetlejuice 2" cast by Catherine O'Hara, who is once again playing Lydia's outlandish, artistic mother Delia. (Jeffrey Jones, who frequently used to work with Burton back in the 1990s, will not be coming back as Lydia's father, Charles, as his career has been kaput for many years due to his being a convicted sex offender.) Justin Theroux is also co-starring in an undisclosed role, with Willem Dafoe playing what he described to Variety as a former "B-movie action star" who died and has since become "a detective character in the afterlife."
Sadly, Glenn Shadix (whom I would personally describe as Burton's secret weapon early on in his career) passed away in 2010 and won't be reprising his role from the original "Beetlejuice" as Delia's acquaintance — the pretentious, heavily queer-coded interior designer Otho — in the sequel. Likewise, the (thankfully, still-living) Alec Baldwin and Genna Davis won't be coming back as Adam and Barbara Maitland, the couple who hired Beetlejuice in the first movie, given that ghosts aren't supposed to age and all that. The only reason Keaton's getting away with that is because he's always been made up to look like a ghoulish corpse as the Beetlejuice character.
Who is the director of Beetlejuice 2?
Two decades after directing what might just be his best film, "Big Fish," Tim Burton being involved with a film or TV series has come to be more cause for concern than celebration (as we discussed earlier). That said, relatively recent Burton films like "Big Eyes" and even Disney's live-action "Dumbo" remake — a movie that Burton has described as a metaphor for his relationship with the Mouse House — have contained flashes of brilliance, and Burton himself has talked up "Beetlejuice 2" as the happiest he's been working on a film in a long time.
As he told The Independent in September 2023:
"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."
At the risk of getting my hopes up, it feels like the more hand-crafted Burton's creations are, the better they turn out. Hopefully, this long-delayed follow-up will prove to be the exception to the rule when it comes to belated comedy sequels.
Who are the writers and producers of Beetlejuice 2?
While Seth Grahame-Smith is expected to receive story credit on "Beetlejuice 2" due to his writing the earlier unproduced version of the sequel, the actual shooting script was penned by "Wednesday" creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The pair's track record as TV writers is pretty impressive, what with them having also developed the long-running young Superman series "Smallville" and AMC's popular post-apocalyptic martial arts drama "Into the Badlands." Unfortunately, when it comes to films, Gough and Millar's misses ("The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor," "I Am Number Four") tend to outnumber their hits (they earned story credit on "Spider-Man 2").
Producers on "Beetlejuice 2" include Burton and Brad Pitt, which would read as a real head-scratcher if you didn't know Pitt was backing the film through his Plan B Entertainment (a banner that tends to specialize in high art director-driven films these days but has also tacked big studio movies before, including Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"). Other producers include Dede Gardner, David Geffen, Tommy Harper, Jeremy Kleiner, and Marc Toberoff.
This post will be updated with more information as we inch closer to "Beetlejuice 2" hitting theaters in 2024. In the meantime, you know the drill: Don't go saying you-know-who's name three times unless you're ready to be haunted by a certain horndog specter.