'Beetlejuice 2' Is Officially Happening! Sequel to 1988 Tim Burton Film Gets Fall 2024 Release Date

Beetlejuice 2 will release in theaters Sept. 6, 2024

BEETLEJUICE, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, Catherine O'Hara, Winona Ryder, Jeffrey Jones, 1988
Photo: Warner Bros/Everett

Beetlejuice is back in business.

PEOPLE confirmed Tuesday that a sequel to director Tim Burton's 1988 film is scheduled to hit theaters on Sept. 6, 2024, 36 years after the original.

The news follows multiple reports in March that Wednesday's Jenna Ortega is in talks to star in the Warner Bros. sequel as the daughter of Winona Ryder's Lydia, one of the main characters in the original.

Michael Keaton is also expected to return in the film as Beetlejuice, with production supposedly kicking off in London this summer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Ryder costarred alongside Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones, Glenn Shadix and Keaton in Beetlejuice, which follows a shady spirit who helps a recently deceased couple drive out an unbearable family who moved into their home.

Michael Keaton, Jenna Ortega, Tim Burton
Michael Keaton, Jenna Ortega, Tim Burton. Evans Vestal Ward/NBC via Getty, Cindy Ord/MG23/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue, Matt Winkelmeyer/FilmMagic/Getty

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The sequel, which has been rumored to be in the works for at least a decade, reportedly features a script written by Wednesday creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The pair previously collaborated with Burton on the hit Netflix series.

As far back as 2011, Deadline reported that producers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith had signed with Warner Bros. and aimed to create a Beetlejuice follow-up. Director Burton, as well as Keaton and Ryder, expressed interest in making a sequel at different times throughout the 2010s.

Back in 2017, Keaton expressed his belief that embarking on a sequel would create significant pressure on the production given audiences' fondness toward the original.

"I just think it's like a little piece of art that you better get right if you ever do it again," he said at the time. "Otherwise you just kind of don't touch it."

Jenna Ortega, WINONA RYDER Beetlejuice
Amy Sussman/WireImage, GEFFEN FILM/WARNER BROTHERS/Alamy

In October, Davis, 67, told PEOPLE that while she had yet to be contacted about returning for a sequel, she "would of course like to revisit" that world again.

"I want to play every character I've ever played again," Davis said at the time.

There is one issue, however, with revisiting her character of Barbara Maitland: She's a ghost, along with her husband, Adam (Baldwin). "I have a feeling that ghosts don't age," she said. "How would they explain that they're older?"

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