Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian: The Wild Unmade Sequel Explained

Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian was the name of a scripted sequel to the 1988 movie Beetlejuice, but never made it to production. The original movie has garnered a cult following over the decades. The movie, produced by the Geffen Company and distributed by Warners Bros., was directed by Tim Burton. The story centers on a recently deceased couple—Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin)—who become ghosts haunting their old house. They meet a poltergeist names Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) from “the Netherworld” who tries to help them scare away the house’s new inhabitants—the Charles, Delia, and Lydia Deetz (Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara, and Winona Ryder, respectively).

Of course, the story of Beetlejuice went on to be dramatized in other forms. An animated Beetlejuice show aired on ABC and Fox from 1989-1991, various Beetlejuice video games were released in the early ‘90s, and the story was brought to Broadway in 2018 with a musical of the same name. The idea of a movie sequel for Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian came around as early as 1990. The script, written by Jonathan Gems, followed the Deetz family as they moved to Hawaii to develop a vacation resort. As construction begins, it’s quickly found that the resort is being planned atop an ancient burial ground. Enter Beetlejuice, who would accidentally awake native spirits and cause mayhem.

The Hawaiian sequel, though, never made it to production. According to Wicked Horror, the idea didn’t pick up steam fast enough. Because Warner Bros. wanted a sequel to the Batman blockbuster, Burton and Keaton went on to make that movie instead. By 1997, Gems was certain that the movie would never get made; he said, at that time: “You really couldn’t do it now anyway. Winona is too old for the role, and the only way they could make it would be to totally recast it.” Ultimately, this was probably the right call; the “Beetlejuice in Hawaii” premise was a little off-brand for a Tim Burton movie. What’s more, a sequel that probably would have flopped could have hurt the image of the original movie in the long run.

Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian: The Wild Unmade Sequel Explained

By the late 2000s, rumors of a sequel began to resurface, and Collider reported that Seth Grahame-Smith turned in a script in 2011. A couple of years later, in 2013, Winona Ryder confirmed that talk about a sequel was swirling around. She told The Daily Beast: “I’m kind of sworn to secrecy but it sounds like it might be happening. It’s 27 years later. And I have to say, I love Lydia Deetz so much. She was such a huge part of me. I would be really interested in what she is doing 27 years later.” Indeed, it would have been fascinating for Beetlejuice fans to see a middle-aged version of Lydia. In 2016, according to EW, Grahame-Smith stated that a script was finished, that he and Burton were ready to film, and that Keaton and Ryder would return to the franchise.

Also in 2016, Burton enthused about the sequel, telling Collider: “It’s something that I really would like to do in the right circumstances, but it’s one of those films where it has to be right … I do love the character and Michael’s amazing as that character … But there’s nothing concrete yet.” The following year, Mike Vukadinovich was hired to re-write the script. Unfortunately, In April 2019—after so many years of rumors surrounding Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian and other potential Beetlejuice sequels—Warner Bros. stated the sequel had been shelved. While a sequel may have flopped back in 1990, it would probably have done well in 2019. After all, reboots and remakes of ’90s movies are currently a hot commodity in Hollywood; ’80s and ’90s babies are all grown up, and enjoy the nostalgia of seeing characters from their childhoods. With this rising interest, there’s always potential for the sequel to be discussed at a later date.

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