Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! Michael Keaton and Jenna Ortega have been confirmed as the stars of the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel.
Beetlejuice 2 will hit theaters on September 6, 2024, Warner Bros. announced. According to a Variety report published on Tuesday, May 9. Keaton, 71, and Winona Ryder will be reprising their roles as Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz, respectively. Ortega, 20, has signed on to play Ryder’s daughter while Justin Theroux joined the cast in a yet-to-be-revealed role.
According to the outlet, Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B, will produce the project, which was penned by Mike Vukadinovich. The movie is scheduled to begin production in London on Wednesday, May 10.
News of the follow-up film comes 35 years after the iconic Tim Burton film’s initial release. The original flick also starred Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O’Hara. The comedy-horror movie follows the lives of a recently deceased couple — played by Davis, 67, and Baldwin, 65 — as they navigate the afterlife when a new family moves into their old home. The ghosts are initially annoyed with Jones and O’Hara’s characters’ antics so they enlist the help of Keaton’s Beetlejuice to haunt them and spook them out of the house.
The cult classic earned $80 million at the box office and has become a pop culture staple, going on to inspire an animated series and a Tony-nominated Broadway musical. Talks of a sequel had been in the works but did not come to fruition until now.
In January 2015, Ryder, 51, revealed she heard the next installment was “going to happen” at some point.
“I first heard about it a few years ago when I was in Toronto doing press for The Iceman,” the Stranger Things star recalled during an appearance for HuffPost Live at the time. “The guy interviewing me was like… ‘Beetlejuice 2!’ and I was like ‘What?’”
She continued: “As far as I know, it’s going to happen.”
Ortega, for her part, has become well-known as a spooky starlet. In addition to starring as Tara Carpenter in Scream 5 and 6, she’s gained critical acclaim for her role as the titular character in Netflix’s Wednesday series. As she took on the mantle of Wednesday Addams, Ortega gushed to The Hollywood Reporter about her working alongside Burton on the project.
“It’s been quite an insane experience,” she recalled in January 2022. “I’ve been lucky enough to get the opportunity to work with an iconic director who just so happens to be one of the sweetest directors I’ve worked with, and also the most detail-oriented.”
