Willem Dafoe Cast in ‘Beetlejuice 2’

With Tim Burton directing the long-anticipated follow-up to his 1988 cult hit, the cast is shaping up as a mixture of returning cast members (such as Michael Keaton) and new faces.

Willem Dafoe stars as Nemo in director Vasilis Katsoupis' 'Inside,' a Focus Features release. Credit: Wolfgang Ennenbach / Focus Features.

As the cameras continue to roll in the UK under the direction of Tim Burton, the sequel to 1988 cult fantasy comedy horror ‘Beetlejuice’ is adding to its cast.

So far, the movie’s ensemble has been a mix of returning cast from the original movie and some new additions as the story moves forward into the present day.

The original, as you may know, saw a couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) getting into an accident while driving home to their dream house. When they realize that A) they’re now dead and B) that their house has been sold to an extremely annoying new family (including Lydia Deetz, played by Winona Ryder, who forms a bond with them), they engage the services of a “bio-exorcist” from the Netherworld. Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) promises to rid them of the frustrating new dwellers, but his chaotic style ends up threatening everyone.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

"The ghost with the most is back."

PG-131 hr 45 minSep 6th, 2024

Showtimes & Tickets

After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Betelgeuse, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her... Read the Plot

Who is starring in ‘Beetlejuice 2’?

Keaton and Ryder are back alongside Catherine O’Hara, who played Delia Deetz’, Lydia’s stepmother) with ‘Scream’s Jenna Ortega (who starred for Burton in the recent Netflix hit ‘Addams Family’ spin-off ‘Wednesday’) playing Ryder’s daughter and Monica Bellucci (reportedly as Betelgeuse’s wife) and Justin Theroux as new recruits.

And Willem Dafoe is joining them to play a ghostly police officer, according to Giant Freakin’ Robot.

Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse in 1988's 'Beetlejuice.'

The ‘Beetlejuice’ sequel so far

1988’s ‘Beetlejuice’ saw the spirits of a deceased couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) harassed by an unbearable family (Jeffrey Jones as Charles Deetz, Catherine O’Hara as Delia Deetz and Ryder as Charles’ daughter, along with various assistants and hangers-on) that has moved into their home, and hire a malicious spirit (Keaton’s Betelgeuse, which is how his name is spelled) to drive them out.

But when Betelgeuse’s malicious chaos becomes too much, the ghostly couple team up with Lydia to try and stop him. Famously, he’s summoned by saying his name three times.

Burton enjoyed making ‘Beetlejuice’ enough that in 1990 hired Jonathan Gems to write a sequel called ‘Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian’, which would have seen the Deetz’ head to the island nation to open a resort, only to build on the burial ground of an ancient Hawaiian Kahuna. The spirit comes back from the afterlife to cause trouble, and Betelgeuse’s services are once more reluctantly required.

The idea languished in development for nearly a decade, going through different scripts and potential writers (including ‘Heathers’ Daniel Waters, who instead went to work on ‘Batman Returns’ for Burton and Kevin Smith, who turned down the idea in favor of the similarly doomed ‘Superman Lives’), before ending its limbo status in apparent failure around 1997.

Yet after years of official silence, Warner Bros. decided to try again, hiring Seth Grahame-Smith to write a script that would set the story in contemporary times with Ryder and Burton back. But even that didn’t turn into anything, despite Mike Vukadinovich re-writing the script.

The current version boasts a script from ‘Wednesday’ creators and Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.

‘Beetlejuice 2’ should be in theaters on September 6th, 2024.