Development After the success of
Beetlejuice (1988), a sequel was fast-tracked by
The Geffen Film Company. Two
Beetlejuice sequel scripts were commissioned in 1990: the first,
Beetlejuice in Love, was penned by screenwriter
Warren Skaaren, who did a heavy re-write on the first film's script. In Skaaren's sequel, Beetlejuice meets Leo, who plummets to his death while proposing to his girlfriend, Julia, on the
Eiffel Tower. When Leo enters the afterlife, Beetlejuice escapes to the world of the living and pursues Julia. Skaaren died shortly after turning in his first draft of the
In Love script. That same year,
Tim Burton hired
Jonathan Gems to write a potential
Beetlejuice sequel titled
Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. "Tim thought it would be funny to match the surfing backdrop of a beach movie with some sort of
German Expressionism, because they're totally wrong together", Gems said. Burton was still interested in
Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian in early 1991. Impressed with
Daniel Waters' work on
Heathers (1989), which also stars Winona Ryder, Burton approached him for a rewrite. However, he eventually signed Waters to write the script for
Batman Returns. By August 1993, producer
David Geffen hired
Pamela Norris (
Troop Beverly Hills, Saturday Night Live) to rewrite. Warner Bros. approached
Kevin Smith in 1996 to rewrite the script, although Smith turned down the offer in favor of
Superman Lives. Smith later joked that his response was, "Didn't we say all we needed to say in the first
Beetlejuice? Must we go tropical?" In March 1997, Gems released a statement saying, "The
Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian script is still owned by The Geffen Company and it will likely never get made. You really couldn't do it now anyway. Winona is too old for the role, and the only way they could make it would be to totally recast it". but all those initial scenarios set in Hawaii, the
Wild West or Paris, France were all scrapped. In September 2011, Warner Bros. hired
Seth Grahame-Smith, who collaborated with Burton on
Dark Shadows and
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (both 2012), to write and produce a sequel to
Beetlejuice. Grahame-Smith signed on with the intention of doing "a story that is worthy of us actually doing this for real, something that is not just about cashing in, is not just about forcing a remake or a
reboot down someone's throat". He was also adamant that Keaton would return and that Warner Bros. would not recast the role. Burton and Keaton had not officially signed on but would return if the script was good enough. Grahame-Smith met with Keaton in February 2012, "We talked for a couple of hours and talked about big picture stuff. It's a priority for Warner Bros. It's a priority for Tim. [Michael's] been wanting to do it for 20 years and he'll talk to anybody about it who will listen". In November 2013, Ryder hinted at a possible return for the sequel as well by saying, "I'm kind of sworn to secrecy but it sounds like it might be happening. It's 27 years later. And I have to say, I love Lydia Deetz so much. She was such a huge part of me. I would be really interested in what she is doing 27 years later". Ryder confirmed that she would only consider making a sequel if Burton and Keaton were involved. In December 2014, Burton stated, "It's a character that I love and I miss actually working with Michael. There's only one Beetlejuice. We're working on a script and I think it's probably closer than ever and I'd love to work with him again". In January 2015, writer Grahame-Smith told
Entertainment Weekly that the script was finished and that he and Burton intended to start filming
Beetlejuice 2 by the end of the year, and that both Keaton and Ryder would return in their respective roles. While negotiating to join the
Netflix series
Stranger Things as
Joyce Byers in mid-2015, Ryder accepted that role under the sole request to
the Duffer Brothers that if a
Beetlejuice sequel were to be greenlit, they would let her take a break from the series to film it, as she and Burton had been having conversations about the project since 2000; the Duffers agreed. In August 2015, on
Late Night with Seth Meyers, Ryder confirmed she would be reprising her role in the sequel. In May 2016, Burton stated, "It's something that I really would like to do in the right circumstances, 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". In October 2017, Mike Vukadinovich was hired to re-write the script. In April 2019, Warner Bros. stated the sequel had been shelved.
Pre-production In February 2022, a sequel was announced again, this time produced by
Brad Pitt's studio
Plan B Entertainment, alongside Warner Bros. Burton stated in October 2022 that he was not involved in the project, but backtracked days later, saying "nothing is out of the question". Burton ultimately returned as the film's director and tried to strip everything from the story to go to the basics of working with "good people, actors and puppets", feeling that the project made him reflect why he liked making films. Burton came up with the film's story upon thinking about Lydia Deetz, a character of his with whom he connected as a teenager, wondering what could have been of her life after the first film's events and how her family life could have developed, turning from a "cool teenager" into a "f—ed-up adult" who hosts a popular
medium-related show titled
Ghost House with Lydia Deetz whose daughter hates her, Burton credited the years of his life since the original film's release as the reason he could not do
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice until then, having experienced many of those things himself, finding the project a very personal film starring a weird family in an emotional story of three generations experiencing basic things everyone feels in life when growing up. With a plot likened to
Willy Wonka's psychedelic boat ride in
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), which takes "very big swings" like unhinged and uncontrollable phantasmagoria and Burton's head being "dumped out" onto the screen, Keaton felt the film's story to be stronger than its predecessor's, with "more of a connection" to the audience in terms of characters, finding "beyond delightful" things for which he was not ready while Ryder confidently expressed her belief that the film exceeded her high expectations and expected every generation to find something they can appreciate from the film. In March 2023, it was reported by
Variety that
Jenna Ortega, who previously worked with Burton on the 2022 Netflix series
Wednesday, was in talks to play Astrid Deetz, while Burton was now expected to direct the film. Ortega and Ryder bonded as they worked together, sharing hobbies such as both being
cinephiles and regarding the experience of working with each other special, resulting in Ortega developing her own performance for Astrid. In May,
Danny Elfman announced he was returning to compose the score for the sequel, while it was also revealed Ortega was confirmed to star, and
Wednesday creators
Alfred Gough and
Miles Millar wrote the script.
Justin Theroux,
Burn Gorman,
Arthur Conti, Filipe Cates, and
Willem Dafoe would also be added to the cast, in undisclosed roles, with Dafoe's being described as an afterlife officer. Dafoe later explained to
Variety at the
Marrakesh Film Festival that his character is an afterlife police officer who used to be a
B movie action star in life before dying in an accident, with his skills leading him to become a detective within the realm. Conti auditioned for the role over a
Zoom call with Burton and a chemistry test with Ortega, receiving the news that he got the part on
April Fools' Day, leading him to initially dismiss it as a practical joke.
Catherine O'Hara reprises her role as Delia Deetz, as well as
Monica Bellucci joining the cast as Betelgeuse's wife Delores. Gough did not originally write Delores' first victim, a deceased
janitor, with an actor in mind, so Burton called his frequent collaborator
Danny DeVito for the role and DeVito accepted it. Atwood disclosed that Betelgeuse's striped suit would return in the film, as it is trademark to the character's quintessential appearance in the same way the
titular character of
Lewis Carroll's novel ''
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) sports an iconic blue dress, although Keaton disagreed and preferred Betelgeuse's burgundy
tuxedo. For Lydia Deetz's attire, Atwood was inspired by
Cassandra Peterson's iconic
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) character. O'Hara later confirmed that the film would include
Harry Belafonte's 1955 song "
Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", which was featured in the first film and serve as an unofficial memorial for Belafonte, who died just before the start of filming. The writers decided that the wedding sequence would feature a musical number with Betelgeuse "being the crazy ringleader of that whole situation", but were unsure of what song to use, and Burton suggested "
MacArthur Park", which Gough found to be "the crazy, weird, insane thing you need at the end of this movie".
Filming Filming was originally scheduled to begin in mid-2022. Later, it was delayed to an expected start date of May 10, 2023, taking place in London if the
2023 WGA strike did not lead to another delay in production. Production was officially confirmed to have begun the following day, and Jay Prychidny serving as editor. On May 18, 2023, it was reported that filming was taking place around the
Princess Helena College in
Preston, Hertfordshire, England. Exterior filming took place in
East Corinth, Vermont (the location of the original film's outdoor scenes), in mid-2023. Filming was suspended in July due to the
2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Burton described the film, which he enjoyed making, as being "99% done". Filming resumed on November 16, 2023, in
Melrose, Massachusetts, and wrapped in
Vermont on November 30, 2023. East Corinth became an international tourist destination for fans of the two films.
Post-production By March 2024, Keaton had seen a completed rough cut of the film and stated that further editing would occur thereafter. Later that month, it was stated in
The Hollywood Reporter that
Jeffrey Jones would not reprise his role as Charles Deetz in the film, his character being revealed in the trailers to have been
killed off; it had been speculated that Jones did not return due to legal issues Jones had in the interim and the controversy surrounding films he has made since the early 2000s due to his status as a
registered sex offender. In August, Burton would confirm via
People that Davis and
Alec Baldwin did not return for
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as the Maitlands were not needed for the story he wanted to tell, which he admitted that he personally could not have done in 1989 due to it focusing on three generations within the Deetz family. To explain their absence, Burton stated that the film would reveal the Maitlands used a
loophole to leave their former house during the interim between this film and the original. Gough told
Entertainment Weekly that an early draft for the film had the Maitlands making a
cameo appearance at the end, he and Millar discussing the idea with Burton, but all three moved on from the concept as they felt no
de-aging technology would be convincing enough to make the audience believe that Davis and Baldwin had not aged since 1988. Also, they felt that the Maitlands' story had been told and their appearance would clash with Burton's decision to not make any
fan service. In any event, much like Jones, legal issues would have prevented Baldwin from returning for the film due to the then-ongoing
Rust shooting incident that saw Baldwin accidentally shoot and kill cinematographer
Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film
Rust (2024). The production VFX supervisor was Angus Bickerton, working with VFX producer Alex Bicknell, supported by visual effects studios
Framestore, One of Us and
BUF. ==Music==