‘Beetlejuice 3’ News Is Back From the Dead… But That Production Listing Is Six Months Old
By Dread Central
4 min readBeetlejuice 3 is making the rounds on social media again, with an industry listing being treated as a fresh update […]
Beetlejuice 3 is making the rounds on social media again, with an industry listing being treated as a fresh update […]
And another trip makes sense. After decades of attempts to get a sequel made, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice finally arrived in 2024 and earned approximately $452 million worldwide.
There’s also a younger audience discovering Burton through Wednesday and Jenna Ortega (Scream), who joined the Beetlejuice sequel as Astrid. They’re different properties, but I can absolutely see that audience carrying over. Burton’s color, characters, and grotesque humor helped define a style of spooky entertainment that still connects with people. I put it in the same broad family as The Addams Family, which he didn’t direct, and the world he subsequently helped bring to television through Wednesday.
Whether he comes back for another Beetlejuice is a separate question. This listing doesn’t answer it.
The studio behind the project is also undergoing a major change. Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has cleared its latest court hurdle, with the deal expected to close October 6, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Variety reports that De Luca and Abdy will depart following the merger.
That doesn’t mean Beetlejuice 3 is dead. It does mean I’d want a current update before treating a March database entry as a reliable picture of where the movie stands under incoming leadership.
Thankfully, we have something more concrete with Gremlins 3: an announced October 6, 2028, release date and a brief teaser showing off Gizmo. That’s considerably further along as a public announcement, even if no movie is immune to changing studio plans.
The shake-up also makes the situation with A Nightmare on Elm Street worth watching. As we previously reported, Puck described competing development efforts at Paramount and Warner Bros., with Paramount’s project backed by the Wes Craven estate.
My read is that the merger and De Luca’s departure make the estate-backed version look more likely to become Freddy Krueger’s next big-screen introduction. That’s an interpretation of the changing leadership, however, not confirmation that Warner Bros.’ competing effort has been canceled.
For anyone needing the quick Beetlejuice refresher: Burton’s 1988 original follows a recently deceased couple who enlist Michael Keaton’s unruly bio-exorcist to drive the living out of their home. In the 2024 sequel, Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz returns to Winter River with her daughter Astrid, whose encounter with the afterlife draws Beetlejuice back into their lives.
If we get a third one, it really should be called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, right? For now, though, we’re still waiting for a fresh announcement to go with that title.
