8 Things To Know About The Unrealized Beetlejuice Sequel

8 Things To Know About The Unrealized Beetlejuice Sequel

Though Hollywood dream team Tim Burton and Michael Keaton cracked audiences up with ’80s cult comedy Beetlejuice, a sequel has never materialized.

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Although the only one of Tim Burton’s movies that he’s ever made a sequel for is Batman, the revered filmmaker has tried and failed to get several sequels off the ground. In addition to unproduced sequels to The Nightmare Before Christmas, Dark Shadows, Planet of the Apes, 9, and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Burton’s unrealized projects also include a follow-up to Beetlejuice.

While the renewed interest in Michael Keaton following his Oscar-nominated comeback in Birdman has some Beetlejuice fans hoping that the sequel could still see the light of day, here’s everything that’s known about the unmade movie.

8 It Was Envisioned As A Beach Movie Called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian

According to a 1997 interview published in Fangoria magazine, Tim Burton hired Jonathan Gems to write a script for a sequel to Beetlejuice in 1990, two years after the release of the first film.

Burton’s vision for the sequel was to put Betelgeuse in a beach movie called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Gems says the juxtaposition of tones was the joke: “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.”

7 The Story Saw Betelgeuse Becoming A Hero

The plot of Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian saw Betelgeuse becoming a hero. In the opening act, Charles would move the Deetz family to Hawaii in order to build a resort there. His company is building on the burial site of an ancient Hawaiian Kāhuna.

The Kāhuna’s returning spirit would be the sequel’s main villain. Somehow, that would’ve culminated in Betelgeuse saving the day by using magic to win a surfing contest.

6 Michael Keaton And Winona Ryder Both Agreed To Make The Sequel On One Condition

One of the trickiest things about making a sequel to a beloved movie is getting the stars to come back. The risk of tarnishing the original’s legacy is usually so high that the actors don’t want to take the chance and bow out of any potential follow-up.

But surprisingly, both Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder were up for a Beetlejuice sequel. They both had just one condition for signing on: it had to be directed by Tim Burton.

5 Development Stalled When Burton And Keaton Made Batman Returns

Michael Keaton and Tim Burton made Beetlejuice and Batman back-to-back. Aside from the dark tone of their stories, these two roles couldn’t have been more different — but Keaton nailed them both, and both movies became huge hits.

Keaton and Burton were planning to get to work on the Beetlejuice sequel after finishing Batman, but then got distracted by the development of a Batman sequel and never got around to making the Beetlejuice sequel.

4 Kevin Smith Turned Down A Rewrite Job On Beetlejuice 2

Kevin Smith explained on his DVD release An Evening with Kevin Smith that in 1996, he was offered two major Hollywood screenwriting jobs: he could either write Superman Lives, which was also ultimately unproduced, or do a rewrite of Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian.

Smith chose to take the Superman job because he’s a huge comic book fan and didn’t think a Beetlejuice sequel was necessary. He joked, “Didn’t we say all we needed to say in the first Beetlejuice? Must we go tropical?”

3 In One Draft, Betelgeuse Went To The White House

In 1991, Tim Burton hired Daniel Waters to get to work on a new script for a Beetlejuice sequel. In Waters’ script, Betelgeuse went to the White House to haunt the Clinton family. Waters’ darkly comedic breakout script Heathers proves he could’ve nailed the tone of Beetlejuice.

When Burton decided to move on from the Beetlejuice sequel and focused on Batman Returns instead, he brought Waters along to work on the Batman sequel’s script.

2 Seth Grahame-Smith Was Hired To Write A New Script In 2011

When so much time had passed that the Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian script could no longer be filmed, Warner Bros. hired Seth Grahame-Smith to write a new script for a Beetlejuice sequel. Grahame-Smith had previously collaborated with Tim Burton on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was adapted from his own novel, and Dark Shadows.

Grahame-Smith’s Beetlejuice 2 script reportedly acknowledged the two-decade time difference in the world of the living, although time is meaningless in the afterlife where Betelgeuse lives.

1 The Sequel Was Briefly Revived, Then Shelved Again In 2019

Throughout the 2010s, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, and Winona Ryder all reiterated their interest in making a Beetlejuice sequel. By 2017, Warner Bros. had hired Mike Vukadinovich — best known for his work on the TV series Kidding and Runaways — to write a script for a sequel.

The hope was that Vukadinovich’s script would be done in time for the original movie’s 30th anniversary, but he only had a year from the time he was hired, which is about as long as it takes to make a movie after the script is finished, so that timeline was never going to work. In 2019, Warner Bros. officially announced that the project had been shelved.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/beetlejuice-sequel-details-unmade-tim-burton-movie/

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