Wednesday Season 3’s Dream Tim Burton Reunion Is Better Than a Sequel to His $452M Hit

Wednesday Season 3 is now in production, and the additions to its cast make it even more exciting. The series, which is now even more important for Netflix as it moves forward without Stranger Things, will bring back most of its major players, once again led by Jenna Ortega as the eponymous character. But there’ll be several newcomers as well, including a few who are already familiar with the works of Tim Burton.

The new cast members in Wednesday Season 3 include Eva Green as Ophelia Frump, plus Chris Sarandon, Noah Taylor, Kennedy Moyer, and Oscar Morgan as Balthazar, Cyrus, Daisy, and Atticus, respectively. Green (Dark Shadows, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Dumbo), Sarandon (The Nightmare Before Christmas), and Taylor (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) have all worked with Burton before, but the most notable veteran who is reuniting with the director is Winona Ryder, who’ll take on the role of a character named Tabitha in the third season.

Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega & Tim Burton’s Wednesday Reunion Beats Beetlejuice 3

Ryder’s addition is her fifth major Burton project, following Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Frankenweenie, and most recently, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. It’ll also mark her return to Netflix after the end of Stranger Things, and a reunion with Jenna Ortega as well, having played the mother of her character, Astrid Deetz, in the Beetlejuice sequel.

While details of Ryder’s role remain unknown, it’s already an incredibly exciting prospect. The actresses quirky outsider performances have tended to fit perfectly into Burton’s suburban gothic fantasies, and Wednesday should be no exception. She’s a no-brainer casting (and had been a popular fancast for Ophelia, before it went to Green), and it’s going to be great to see what she does. It’ll also be wonderful to see her pair with Ortega, who shares many of the same qualities as Ryder. They played off each other brilliantly in Beetlejuice 2, and hopefully can recapture some of that chemistry in the Netflix show.

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This comes not only after the box office success of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but also continued talk over another sequel to the movie. In April 2025, Warner Bros. CEO revealed another movie was in the works; a couple of months later, Burton himself [via THR] said he hadn’t heard anything, and wasn’t sure if it’s something that he would do (while Ortega insisted she wouldn’t do it without Burton).

It’d certainly make sense for WB to want to make another one, but it’s for the best that it doesn’t happen. The sequel could’ve gone wrong in so many ways, but Burton et al pulled it off. Doing another risks pushing it, and also undoing the more ambiguous (and thus, interesting) ending to the second movie, with Astrid still being haunted. It also nicely wrapped everything up with the returning Deetz family, and that’s a great place to end it.

Wednesday Season 3 reuniting Ryder and Ortega under Burton’s direction is a much more exciting idea. This can allow them to draw on the strengths they displayed in Beetlejuice, but also do something new with it at the same time. There’s still clearly plenty of room for expansion with Wednesday, which Ryder can now be a part of, and that makes it a far more tantalizing choice than another Beetlejuice sequel.

Wednesday Season 3 is now in production, with Seasons 1 and 2 streaming on Netflix. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is streaming on HBO Max.

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