Tim Burton didn’t summon Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis to reprise their ghostly roles for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — and the legendary director is explaining why. “I think the thing was for me I didn’t want to just tick any boxes,” Burton, 66, told People in an interview published on Wednesday, August 29. “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 1988 horror comedy as recently deceased couple Adam and Barbara Maitland who died when they accidentally drove off a bridge while swerving to avoid hitting a dog. Now in the afterlife, the duo find themselves at odds with the Deetz family — Lydia ( Winona Ryder ), Delia ( Catherine O’Hara ) and Charles ( Jeffrey Jones ) — after they move into the Connecticut home in which the Maitlands used to live. In an attempt to reclaim their space, Adam and Barbara summon Beetlejuice ( Michael Keaton ) to haunt the house until the Deetz’s move out.
For the 2024 sequel, which hits theaters on Friday, September 6, Burton teamed back up with a handful of the original cast including Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara, along with new faces Jenna Ortega , Willem Dafoe and Justin Theroux . Davis and Baldwin, however, do not make appearances. Burton shared that it was important for him to focus on the Deetz women after the loss of their patriarch, Charles.
“A sequel like this, it really had to do with the time. That was my hook int.