Jenna Ortega May Reteam With Tim Burton for ‘Beetlejuice 2’

Jenna Ortega has been unofficially anointed Hollywood’s new goth queen. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Wednesday star is “circling” a role in Beetlejuice 2, directed by Tim Burton. 

Burton directed the original Beetlejuice in 1988, which starred Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Jeffrey Jordan, Catherine O’Hara, Winona Ryder, and Michael Keaton as the titular ghoul who appears when you say his name thrice. The film made nearly $75 million on a $15 million budget at the box office and quickly became a cult hit. A rumored sequel has been in development for an eternity, but Burton’s involvement has always been in question. According to THR, though, both Burton and Keaton are now planning to return for the sequel.

According to THR, if she is cast, Ortega would play the daughter of Ryder’s former goth teen, Lydia. Ortega, of course, is no stranger to franchises or horror-comedy. She currently stars in Scream VI, the highly anticipated latest chapter in the reboot of the ’90s slasher series, and broke big last fall as a new iteration of another ’90s-era macabre teen: Wednesday Addams, in Netflix’s smash-hit series Wednesday. 

Also directed by Burton, Wednesday saw Ortega step into her first major leading role, and the young star really made the part her own. “I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday,” she recently told Dax Shepard while appearing on his podcast, Armchair Expert. “Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all.” 

Ironically, the very people Ortega says she tussled with are directly involved in the Beetlejuice sequel as well. Wednesday showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have been tapped to write Beetlejuice 2—which could potentially make for an awkward reunion. “There was times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines,” Ortega told Shepard. “The script supervisor thought that, like, I was going with something, and then I would have to sit down with the writers, and they would be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.”

Despite all this, Ortega says she had a wonderful experience working with Burton, who served as an executive producer on Wednesday and directed four of its eight episodes. “It’s been quite an insane experience,” Ortega told The Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve been lucky enough to get the opportunity to work with an iconic director who just so happens to be one of the sweetest directors I’ve worked with, and also the most detail-oriented.” 

Next up for Ortega is hosting Saturday Night Live on Saturday, March 11. So before being immersed in the world of another ’90s-era goth teen, Ortega will get to show the world her sillier side. (Maybe.)