What if Hollywood’s hottest sequel is greenlit… but the director and star are totally in the dark? 😲🪰

Wednesday and Beetlejuice fans, the rumor mill’s exploding: Warner Bros. confirms Beetlejuice 3 is barreling ahead after that $451M sequel smash, but Tim Burton quips “Nobody told me—maybe I’ve been replaced,” and Jenna Ortega fires back she’d “never” return without him, calling any sans-Tim version “disrespectful.” As for Wednesday Season 3? Both swear it’s locked and loaded, with Burton eyeing a return despite his packed crypt. Is this the ultimate ghosting, or just studio smoke?

The shade is real—get the full scoop on their THR clapbacks, plot teases, and why this could rewrite the afterlife. Who’s team “No Tim, No Deal”? Click for the unfiltered fallout 🖤

Hollywood’s rumor factory has churned out some wild ones over the years—think Brangelina splits or that endless Batman recast carousel—but the latest buzz around Tim Burton’s gothic empire feels like a plot twist straight out of one of his funhouse flicks. Warner Bros. bosses dropped a bombshell in April, teasing that Beetlejuice 3 was “imminently” in development after the 2024 sequel raked in $451 million worldwide, a haul that resurrected a 36-year-old corpse of a franchise. Yet in a joint Hollywood Reporter sit-down last month, Burton and his go-to goth girl Jenna Ortega—fresh off slaying as Astrid Deetz and Wednesday Addams—served up a collective “Huh?” to the news. Burton’s deadpan: “Really? Nobody told me. Maybe I’ve been replaced.” Ortega piled on: “Maybe I have too.” It’s the kind of studio-side snub that could fuel a dozen TikTok conspiracy threads, but dig deeper, and it’s classic Burton: a quirky jab at the machine that birthed his masterpieces, laced with the loyalty that’s made their collab the talk of Tinseltown. And with Wednesday Season 3 officially greenlit for eight episodes, the pair’s chat doubled as a crystal ball for what’s next in their shared crypt.

Let’s rewind the celluloid for the uninitiated, because nothing in Burton’s world happens without a healthy dose of backstory. The original Beetlejuice hit in 1988 like a poltergeist at a PTA meeting: Michael Keaton’s striped-suit ghoul crashing the afterlife with Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara in tow. It grossed $84 million on a $15 million budget, spawned a Broadway musical (which Burton famously griped about), and lingered in pop culture like ectoplasm on a shag rug. Fast-forward three-plus decades, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice—Burton’s labor of love, scripted by Wednesday’s Alfred Gough and Miles Millar—dropped in September 2024 to rave reviews and box-office resurrection. Certified Fresh at 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, it blended stop-motion spookiness with Ortega’s whip-smart Astrid, the Deetz daughter with a knack for summoning sandworms. Ryder’s Lydia, now a medium with mommy issues, bridged the generational gap, while Keaton’s Beetlejuice stole scenes with his baby-faced sequel twist. “It was like catching up with old ghosts,” Burton told THR, crediting the improv-fueled chaos for recapturing the first film’s lightning-in-a-bottle vibe.

Enter the sequel sequel whispers. In a Deadline powwow, Warner Bros. co-chairs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy—fresh off saving the project from a Max streaming limbo—hinted at Beetlejuice 3 as part of a legacy IP blitz, alongside Gremlins reboots and a Gollum spin-off. “We’re super excited,” De Luca beamed, pegging development to kick off “imminently” post-Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s triumph. Fans lit up X with #Beetlejuice3 trending at 2.5 million impressions, fan art flooding Etsy with sandworm tees and Astrid cosplay kits. But when THR prodded Burton and Ortega on it during their first-ever joint interview—a black-clad confab that doubled as Wednesday Season 2 promo—the vibe shifted to bewildered banter. Burton, sketching doodles mid-chat like the eccentric he’d play in his own biopic, leaned in: “It took 35 years to make the second one, so by that time I’ll be 105. I know those odds are not good.” He paused, eyes twinkling. “I really enjoyed making this one… but it’s like trying to recreate the Wednesday dance scene.” Ortega, all sharp wit and subtle side-eye, chimed in with a plot pitch that screamed her Astrid edge: “Maybe [my character] Astrid dies and goes to heaven instead of the Netherworld. They should just take Baby Beetlejuice on tour and send him to Hawaii.” Laughter ensued, but the undercurrent was clear: no Burton, no magic.

Ortega didn’t stop at quips—she laid down a line in the sand sharper than Lydia’s bob. “Oh, I would never [do it without Tim],” she said flatly. “I also think anybody would be really wrong to get behind that project. Without him involved, what is it? It is what it is because of Tim. There’s no other film you can compare Beetlejuice to. So why would you do that? That would be a tad disrespectful.” It’s a stance that’s pure Ortega: the 23-year-old phenom who’s parlayed Wednesday into exec-producer clout, turning down scripts that don’t vibe and calling out industry BS like her viral Scream VI script tweaks. Her loyalty to Burton isn’t just contractual—it’s personal. “Tim’s the one who saw me as Wednesday when others passed,” she told Vanity Fair last year, crediting his four-episode directorial haul in Season 1 for the show’s billion-hour binge record. Burton, ever the soft-spoken surrealist, reciprocated the props: “Jenna knows everything about what’s going on in front of and behind the camera. I’m a creep? You’re never not being watched by her.” Their rapport? Electric, like Beetlejuice’s bio-exorcist bolt. But in a town where proprietary feels like a four-letter word—Burton griped about the Broadway show too—it’s a reminder that some ghosts don’t share the grave.

The Beetlejuice blackout ties neatly into Wednesday’s own fog, where Burton’s involvement for Season 3 hangs like Thing’s hitchhiking thumb. Netflix’s Addams reboot remains the streamer’s crown jewel: Season 1’s 341 million hours viewed in week one made it the most-watched English series ever, and Season 2’s split drop—Part 1 on August 6, Part 2 on September 3—clocked another 500 million, per Nielsen. The two-parter amped the family feud: Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán) invading Nevermore, Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) smuggling cult secrets, and Grandmama Hester (Joanna Lumley) dropping bombshells that blurred schoolyard sleuthing with Addams anarchy. New blood like Steve Buscemi’s sleazy principal Barry Dort and Billie Piper’s wolf-whisperer Isadora Capri added bite, while Ortega’s Wednesday navigated psychic plagues and zombie galas with her trademark “I would die for you… but I won’t.” The finale? A sidecar cliffhanger: Enid (Emma Myers) wolfed-out forever, Tyler (Hunter Doohan) vanishing into Capri’s Hyde haven, and Ophelia’s blood-scrawl “Wednesday Must Die” haunting like a raven’s caw.

Season 3’s locked for eight episodes, with Gough and Millar already scripting amid Romania’s misty sets. Filming eyes late 2025 in Ireland—Burton’s gothic playground—for a mid-2027 drop, factoring VFX vamps and strike shadows. But Burton’s seat? “It depends entirely on his schedule,” Millar told Collider. The auteur helmed four eps each in Seasons 1 and 2, infusing Nevermore with his striped-signature flair: fog-drenched forests, stop-motion sidekicks, and that cello-scored gloom. “It’s always great to have Tim here,” Gough echoed, but with Burton juggling a rumored Medusa pic for Sony and his Fester spinoff tease, priorities ping-pong. Ortega’s bullish: “Season 3’s darker, more personal—Tim’s vision is the spine.” In their THR powwow, she gushed about Season 2’s “grander scale,” crediting Burton’s tweaks—like amping Agnes DeMille’s (Evie Templeton) stalker curtsies—for keeping Wednesday’s edge. Burton, sketching a sandworm mid-sentence, nodded: “The key is not veering from what that character is. Jenna’s crucial there.”

The ripple effects? Fandom’s frothing. X’s #TimReplaced trended at 1.8 million post-interview, with edits mashing Burton’s “105” quip over Beetlejuice’s grave-dance. Reddit’s r/WednesdayAddams dissected Ortega’s “disrespectful” dig as shade at WB’s IP churn—think that ill-fated Hawaiian sequel pitch from the ’90s. TikTok’s #Beetlejuice3No hit 1.2 billion views, fan vids pitching Astrid’s “heaven tour” with Baby BJ as a luau-lurking toddler. Purists praise the pushback: “Burton’s not a sequel mill—he’s a mood,” one viral post nailed, nodding to his Disney detours like Dumbo’s “soul-destroying” slog. Skeptics? Plenty gripe WB’s haste post-$451M windfall, fearing a cash-grab sans the auteur who birthed the bio-exorcist. De Luca’s coy “imminently” now rings hollow, especially with Burton’s proprietary prickles—he “got pissed” over Broadway, after all.

Yet amid the shade, silver linings lurk. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s afterlife—streaming on Netflix since July—boosted Wednesday crossovers, with Astrid’s powers echoing Wednesday’s visions in fanfic fever. Ortega’s star? Stratospheric: She’s eyeing a Jurassic World reboot and that Death of a Unicorn indie, but Wednesday’s her anchor. “Without Tim, it’s not the same,” she reiterated, a mantra that could stall Beetlejuice 3 or spark a Burton-WB thaw. For Season 3, leaks tease Enid’s Alpha reversal ritual clashing with Tyler-Capri’s hybrid horde, Xavier’s (Percy Hynes White) Swiss portal pop-in, and Ophelia’s (un cast, but Florence Pugh whispers) basement breakout. Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) enrolls full-time, Bianca (Joy Sunday) sirens up, and Fester’s sidecar teases spinoff synergy. Budgets balloon to $12 mil per ep for wolf CGI and psychic pyrotechnics, with Netflix’s Tudum October event primed for a sizzle.

In the end, this “replaced” rumble underscores Burton and Ortega’s alchemy: a director who paints with shadows and a star who slays them. Warner Bros. might hustle sequels like afterlife bureaucracy, but their bond? Unbreakable as a Hand-stand. Beetlejuice 3? Say his name thrice without Burton, and it might just fizzle. Wednesday Season 3? That’s the dirge fans crave—gloomier, grander, guaranteed. As Ortega quipped, “I’m a creep. You’re never not being watched.” In Hollywood’s hall of mirrors, that’s the real haunt.