Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B to bring Beetlejuice sequel back to life
After over two decades of planning Beetlejuice 2, it seems to finally be happening
Aux News Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Now that we’ve said his name thrice, does that mean we’ll finally get that sequel? It sure looks like it. Deadline reports Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B is developing Beetlejuice 2.
As for the current status of the sequel, Deadline says it’s still in early development, and the script hasn’t even been written yet.
While Deadline says no other attachments have been made yet, Empire reports that Michael Keaton, who played the crude ghoul, will wear the striped suit again, and that Winona Ryder is also returning as “strange and unusual” Lydia Deetz. However these casting details are unconfirmed by anyone involved in the production.
This isn’t the first time there’s been an attempt to make a Beetlejuice sequel. Jonathan Gems, who penned the screenplay for Tim Burton’s other cult classic Mars Attacks!, wrote the first shelved sequel titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian.
According to Wicked Horror, Burton wanted to “combine the setting of a classic, cheesy ‘60s beach movie with the gothic German Expressionist flair he’s known for.” The movie would’ve had the Deets move to Hawaii, “where the patriarch planned to open a resort. Obviously, the chaotic Betelgeuse would follow closely behind, accidentally awakening an angry native spirit and, most importantly, the ghost with the most would also win the big third-act surf contest.”
Warner Bros. reportedly favored having Burton make a Batman sequel instead of a Beetlejuice one, so plans were halted.
Over a decade later, Seth Grahame-Smith wrote another sequel in 2011. In a since-archived EW article from 2015, it’s said that Grahame-Smith had “completed a few drafts of the script and received interest from all the principle players.” Ryder and Keaton were already on board, and Burton was happy with the script, too, according to Grahame-Smith.
“I’ve emailed with Michael Keaton. I know he’s excited about the idea. I know Tim is excited about the idea. Where it stands now is Tim’s got to get ready to make [Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children], and then hopefully we are set, deals are done, and we’re waiting in the wings ready to go right after Peregrine’s wraps up. The ideal timeline is we’re really getting into it toward the end of this year,” he said.
It has yet to be announced if Grahame-Smith will also be attached to this sequel as a screenwriter, or if that version of the sequel will remain shelved.
19 Comments
So, throwing money away on an obviously bad idea, then?
If only they could get pre-2010 Tim Burton for this one. That guy would be perfect for this!
Why have him win a surf contest when you could have re-created the original jumping of the shark?
Aren’t y’all so supposed to be on strike right now?
I love Beetlejuice. I’ll eventually get a Beetlejuice tattoo of some kind. I watch the movie annually. I use Beetlejuice as my avatar on a large, large number of websites, social media, etc. Hell, I went to the fucking show at Universal.I hate this idea more than I hate most things. Beetlejuice is perfect as it is, along with the kids cartoon and, I guess, the Broadway production. The more Beetlejuice we get, the less iconic and interesting the original movie is.Please just leave it alone. Let’s all move on. Let it be an amazing, flash-in-the-pan movie that had some moderately successful follow-ups. Please.
Just do like I do with things like this and never watch it.Like I’m not ever watching Coming 2 America or Son of the Mask or Speed 2 or American Psycho 2. Did you know there’s a Kindergarten Cop 2? Saw it advertised a while back somewhere (think it was Starz of all places) and was like, “nope, not watching that. It doesn’t exist.”I’m guessing that it would be a net gain if I skipped all sequels. Be hard to quantify, but I’m guessing for every good sequel I’d missed there’d be a dozen terrible ones that I wouldn’t have to suffer through. Interesting thought experiment.
Yeah, that’s the way to go, but it’s Beetlejuice, and I’d have a morbid fascination with it. Oh well.
Last sequel to something I generally keep up with that I just skipped was Rise of Skywalker. So I really gotta lean into that frame of mind.
Burton wanted to “combine the setting of a classic, cheesy ‘60s beach movie with the gothic German Expressionist flair he’s known for.”This sounds like some original Brady Bunch movie in goth-face garbage.
Happy Strike Day everyone
> We’re asking people not to click on—or contribute content to—@Gizmodo, @Jalopnik, @Jezebel, @Kotaku, @Lifehacker, and @TheRoot.Apparently I’ve been supporting that strike for a couple of years now. And you can count on me to continue that support for years to come!
I’m off twitter, so thanks for the heads-up – won’t be checking those (these?) sites for a bit. GMG management and spanfeller can fuck all the way off unless and until they start showing some respect for the writers we come here to read.
Thanks for the intel! Up until now I’ve been idiotically clicking and reloading, wondering what’s been up. I’ll consult bird app for more updates from here on out.
Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian would have been interesting if it came out when it was supposed to.If any Beetlejuice sequel gets made, it’ll be full of that twee bright colored CGI weirdness that has become Tim Burton’s shorthand in his more recent films. Give me dank, stop motion Burton any day. If they can get someone else to direct, maybe it’ll work.
If this has to happen, there’s a few things (that will likely not be followed) that could make it successful:-Keep Burton as producer but find another director. He lost his magic somewhere around Mars Attacks.-Eschew as much CGI as possible in favour of spot motion, practical effects, and make up.-Don’t try so hard to make it family friendly, as every reboot seems to try.
If Keaton thinks it can work then go for it. He’s the movie.
“Didn’t we say all we needed to say in the first Beetlejuice?”Kevin Smith
This is sad news for me. I started a Beetlejuice sequel novel about 2.5 years ago with the hopes that I’d finish and get it into the hands of someone who could get it into the hands of someone. I’m just a horribly, slow writer. I also realize I should have just wrote a screenplay or a treatment instead, but I don’t have any experience with that. I like the storyline I had planned out. I even dream casted the new characters (Cameron Diaz…..Rhys Darby). It won’t sting as bad if whatever we get for BJII is good.
All I know is, if they don’t call it “Beetledeuce”, they already fucked up.
Community already gave us that sequel, though it took them three episodes to do it.