Details

Release year: 2000

Storyline

The Newton family from the first two Beethoven movies is on vacation in Europe, but they do plan to attend a Newton family reunion, and to make sure one of their family members definitely makes it, they ship him to travel to there with George's brother, Richard. Guess which one it was? That's right, Beethoven. He follows Richard and his family as they hit the road to California in a huge, shiny, and expensive RV, equipped with a DVD player. Following them are two bumbling crooks who have hidden some secret codes on a DVD that they figure no one in the world will buy, but someone does: Richard. So now they have a DVD holding top secret information, and the crooks must get it back.

Top credits

Directors

David Mickey Evans

Writers

Cast

Judge Reinhold — Richard Newton
Julia Sweeney — Beth Newton
Joe Pichler — Brennan Newton
Michaela Gallo — Sara Newton

See all 26 credits →

Did you know

• The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) never received an official DVD release until 2003. The copy the Newtons own with the stolen computer codes is a prop created for the movie. The design that the prop man used for the copy's case is recycled from the case for the film's 1996 MCA/Universal Home Video VHS release.

• After the box office success of the first two Beethoven films Universal wanted to push for another entry in the series to be released around 1995 or 1996. However Charles Grodin star of the original film who played George Newton had retired from acting in 1994 in order to host a talk show on MSNBC and had wanted to stop acting to work closer to his home and family. The project was shelved for several years and revived by 2000. Grodin was asked again to participate in the sequel but was busy doing Andy Rooney-like segments for 60 Minutes II (1999) and was committed to doing so for three years. Grodin returned to acting in 2006 and then worked regularly until his death in 2021. When Grodin declined to participate producers approached Bonnie Hunt to reprise her role as Alice Newton while Nichole Tom, Christopher Castile and Sarah Rose Karr were asked to reprise their roles as the children. It was to be explained that George had since passed away and Alice was widowed, or that they got divorced. Hunt however disliked the idea and while Tom still continues to act to the present day, Castile went on to become a professor and stopped acting in 1998 while Karr had stopped professionally acting around 1995. It was then decided to focus the film on entirely different characters, in this case George, the character of Charles Grodin's brother.

• Screenwriter John Hughes is credited (for "characters created by") as "Edmond Dantès". Dantes is the central character in "The Count of Monte Cristo", and is the same credit John Hughes had on the first two movies.