Tim Burton Reveals Why Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis Aren't in 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice'

The filmmaker said he 'didn't want to just tick any boxes' by bringing the pair back as Adam and Barbara Maitland.

By Allison Schonter

The upcoming Beetlejuice sequel may see several familiar faces returning to the screen alongside newcomer Jenna Ortega's Astrid Deetz, but at least two actors are not being summoned. Ahead of the film's Sept. 6 premiere, director Tim Burton revealed why Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are not reprising their roles as recently deceased couple Adam and Barbara Maitland in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

"I think the thing was for me I didn't want to just tick any boxes," Burton told PEOPLE. "So even though they were such an amazing integral part of the first one, I was focusing on something else."

Davis, 68, and Baldwin, 66, starred in the original 1988 classic as the Maitlands, a young married couple who find their spirits confined to their Connecticut home after they die when they accidentally drive off a bridge. At odds with the recently moved in Deetz family – Lydia (Winona Ryder), Delia (Catherine O'Hara) and Charles (Jeffrey Jones), who also doesn't return for the sequel – the Maitlands seek the help of trickster demon Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to scare the family away.

Although the Maitlands played an integral part in the original film, and their exits in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will be explained as them finding a "loophole" that allows them to finally leave their former home, Burton said O'Hara, Ryder, and Ortega, who play three generations of Deetz women, are the nucleus" of the sequel.

"A sequel like this, it really had to do with the time. That was my hook into it, the three generations of mother, daughter, granddaughter," he said. "And that [would] be the nucleus of it. I couldn't have made this personally back in 1989 or whatever."

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Set decades after the original 1988 film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sees the Deetz women traveling back to Winter River after a family tragedy. Per the official synopsis, "still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. With trouble brewing in both realms, it's only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice's name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem."

Along with Ryder, O'Hara, Keaton, and Ortega, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also stars Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti, and Willem Dafoe. The movie hits theaters on Friday, Sept. 6.

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