Beetlejuice 2 writer Seth Grahame-Smith provided some insight into why the supernatural comedy sequel stalled in pre-production.
Grahame-Smith's involvement with the film goes back to 2011, at which point Warner Bros. hired him to write the sequel on the heels of his collaboration with Beetlejuice director Tim Burton on the Dark Shadows movie reboot. "It’s funny, when I had met with Tim about it last, and we’re talking about five years ago at this point, the reason that it’s so hard to get going is because so many people love [Beetlejuice] and because there are 10 million ways to get that sequel wrong and four ways to get it right," Grahame-Smith told Collider.
Released in 1988, the original Beetlejuice follows a recently deceased couple who recruit the titular poltergeist (played by Michael Keaton), a self-proclaimed "bio-exorcist," to get rid of their home's new living inhabitants. A critical and box office success, the film won an Oscar for Best Makeup and spawned an animated series (also titled Beetlejuice) that aired for four seasons from 1989-91, as well as a stage musical adaptation that premiered on Broadway in 2019.
The Grahame-Smith-penned Beetlejuice 2 is actually the second attempt at bringing the franchise back to the big screen after Burton tried and failed to get a now-infamous sequel titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian off the ground in the 1990s. "It’s such a very fine needle to thread that I certainly like didn’t get it there, on the script side," said Grahame-Smith of his own script. "I didn’t thread the needle. There are things that were cool and some interesting ideas. I’ve certainly emotionally moved on from it and just said, "If it happens someday, it happens."
Although details are mostly under lock and key, it's known that Grahame-Smith's version of Beetlejuice 2 would've picked up in real-time after the first movie, with Winona Ryder returning as a now-grown Lydia Deetz and Keaton reprising his role as "The Ghost with the Most." Beyond that, however, it's unclear how the sequel served to continue the story from the original film.
Keaton and Ryder will both return to the screen in 2022, with Keaton co-starring in The Flash and Ryder reprising her role as Joyce Byers for Stranger Things Season 4. Elsewhere, Burton is attached to direct the Addams Family series Wednesday for Netflix and Grahame-Smith recently served as showrunner on Just Beyond Season 1, which is now streaming on Disney+.
Source: Collider