There was a collective sigh of dismay when, among hundreds of other projects, production on Tim Burton‘s Beetlejuice 2 had been halted due to the dual strike organised by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA over the summer months. More agonisingly, during an interview with Variety at the time, Burton revealed that Beetlejuice 2 was a day and a half away from completing principal photography when everybody was compelled to down tools on the movie. Happily, however, the strikes were both resolved for the acting and writing unions, with both prevailing in their long battles against the Hollywood studios, which allowed shooting to resume on a number of upcoming films and television shows.

Now, Burton has confirmed that production on his long-awaited sequel has finally concluded, months after it was supposed to. Burton took to Instagram to announce that shooting had finished, accompanied by a photo of him sitting on the set of the film, simply stating:

Just finished shooting Beetlejuice. Thank you to everyone involved

What’s ‘Beetlejuice 2’ About?

Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, and Winona Ryder, will be reprising their roles in the sequel while newcomers Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci, Justin Theroux, and Willem Dafoe, will join the cast. Ortega will play the daughter of Ryder‘s Lydia Deetz, while Dafoe recently confirmed he would be taking on the role of a B-movie action star who, in the wake of his death, becomes a law enforcement officer, or a supernatural detective of sorts. Details about the sequel’s plot are scarce at this moment in time but we do know is that it’s a direct sequel to the original film.

Beetlejuice tells the story of a happy ghost couple whose peaceful afterlife gets turned upside down when a flashy, ostentacious family moves into their home. The usual ghostly tricks don’t scare the new residents away, so the ghost couple decides to call on a demon for help. Things take an unexpected turn, though, and the outcome of the demon summoning doesn’t go as planned, leading to Keaton‘s titular character running amok and causing chaos for all involved. Beetlejuice is available to stream now on Max.

Beetlejuice 2 is currently scheduled to hit theaters on September 6, 2024.

via Collider