Set more than three decades after the first film, it follows Lydia Deetz, now a mother, struggling to keep her family together in the wake of a loss as Betelgeuse[a] returns to haunt her.

After the success of Beetlejuice, plans for a sequel were announced by The Geffen Film Company, its original producers, and little materialized until 2011 when Warner Bros. Pictures hired Seth Grahame-Smith to pitch a story, which went through numerous revisions before being shelved in late 2019.

After the casting process finished in early 2023, principal photography, supervised by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, took place in parts of England and the U.S. from May to November, despite being suspended for four months due to the 2023 actors' strike.

During post-production, editing was handled by Jay Prychidny and the score was composed by longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.

Former actor-turned-afterlife detective Wolf Jackson informs Betelgeuse that his ex-wife, occultist Delores LaFerve, has resurfaced and gone on a murderous spree, draining the souls of the dead while searching for him.

The couple met during the Black Plague in Italy when Delores married and then poisoned Betelgeuse as part of an immortality ritual.

Lydia learns from local realtor Jane Butterfield that Jeremy murdered his parents twenty-three years prior and died when the police tried to arrest him.

While Betelgeuse sends Jeremy to the "Fires of Damnation", Richard shows Lydia and Astrid how to return to the living world.

Betelgeuse injects Rory with "truth serum", forcing him to admit that he never believed in Lydia's abilities and is only a profiting gold digger.

In Skaaren's sequel, Betelgeuse meets Leo, who tragically plummets to his death while proposing to his girlfriend, Julia, on the Eiffel Tower.

[24] "Tim thought it would be funny to match the surfing backdrop of a beach movie with some sort of German Expressionism, because they're totally wrong together", Gems said.

[26] By August 1993, producer David Geffen hired Pamela Norris (Troop Beverly Hills, Saturday Night Live) to rewrite.

Lots of things came up",[29] but all those initial scenarios set in Hawaii, the Wild West or Paris, France were all scrapped.

[30] In September 2011, Warner Bros. hired Seth Grahame-Smith, who collaborated with Burton on Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (both 2012), to write and produce a sequel to Beetlejuice.

"[36] In January 2015, writer Grahame-Smith told Entertainment Weekly that the script was finished and that he and Burton intended to start filming Beetlejuice 2 by the end of the year, and that both Keaton and Ryder would return in their respective roles.

[42] In February 2022, a sequel was announced again, this time produced by Brad Pitt's studio Plan B Entertainment, alongside Warner Bros.[43] Burton stated in October 2022 that he was not involved in the project, but backtracked days later, saying "nothing is out of the question".

[44] Burton ultimately returned as the film's director and tried to strip everything from the story to go to the basics of working with "good people, actors and puppets", feeling that the project made him reflect why he liked making movies.

[46] With a plot likened to Willy Wonka's psychedelic boat ride in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), which takes "very big swings" like unhinged and uncontrollable phantasmagoria and Burton's head being "dumped out" onto the screen, Keaton felt the film's story to be stronger than its predecessor's, with "more of a connection" to the audience in terms of characters, finding "beyond delightful" things he wasn't ready for while Ryder confidently expressed her belief that the film exceeded her high expectations and expected every generation to find something they can appreciate from the film.

[51] In May, Danny Elfman announced he was returning to compose the score for the sequel, while it was also revealed Ortega was confirmed to star, and Wednesday creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar wrote the script.

[9][15][16][17][53] Dafoe later explained to Variety at the Marrakesh Film Festival that his character is an afterlife police officer who used to be a B movie action star in life before dying in an accident, with his skills leading him to become a detective within the realm.

[54] Conti auditioned for the role over a Zoom call with Burton and a chemistry test with Ortega, receiving the news that he got the part on April Fools' Day, leading him to initially dismiss it as a practical joke.

[55] Catherine O'Hara reprises her role as Delia Deetz, as well as Monica Bellucci joining the cast as Betelgeuse's wife Delores.

[58] For Lydia Deetz's attire, Atwood was inspired by Cassandra Peterson's iconic Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) character.

[77] In April, Geena Davis stated she would not be returning as Barbara Maitland due to her age, saying, "Our characters were stuck the way they looked when they died forever, so it's been a while, it's been a minute.

[79] Gough told Entertainment Weekly that an early draft for the film had the Maitlands making a cameo appearance at the end, he and Millar discussing the idea with Burton, but all three moved on from the concept as they felt no de-aging technology would be convincing enough to make the audience believe that Davis and Baldwin hadn't aged since 1988.

Also, they felt that the Maitland couple's story had been told and their appearance would clash with Burton's decision to not make any fan service.

[85] A cover of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" is performed by Alfie Davis and the Sylvia Young Theatre School Choir and was released on May 23, 2024.

[95] The promotion included tie-in marketing deals with CarMax, Progressive, Secret, Denny's, Fanta, NYX and Sally Hansen.

"[110] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 61 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[112] Xan Brooks, writing for The Guardian, stated, "Burton's game attempt to bring the 1980s horror-comedy back from the spirit world is full of gaudy set-pieces but fails to add much to the original.