No matter how many times you say their names, don’t expect Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis to pop up in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Director Tim Burton recently explained why the actors did not reprise their roles as the ghostly couple Adam and Barbara Maitland from the original 1988 movie for the long-awaited sequel, which premieres Sept. 6 in theaters.
“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.”
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In the first movie, the recently-deceased couple enlists the help of the titular ghoul (played by Michael Keaton) to help them scare away the yuppie family that moved in after their death. But when the family’s death-obsessed teen Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) meets the mischievous spirit, all hell breaks loose on the Connecticut home.
“A sequel like this, it really had to do with the time,” explained Burton. “That was my hook into it, the three generations of mother, daughter, granddaughter. And that [would] be the nucleus of it. I couldn’t have made this personally back in 1989 or whatever.”
In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Lydia returns home with her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) and boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) following the death of her father Charles (played in the original by Jeffrey Jones). The funeral reunites Lydia with her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara reprising her role) as Beetlejuice returns to wreak havoc once again.
After the original movie saw the couple confined to haunt their former home, the sequel explains how they found a “loophole” that allows them to leave.
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Davis, who can currently be seen in Zoë Kravitz‘s directorial debut Blink Twice, previously offered a theory as to why the characters don’t make a comeback in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
“No, I’m not. I’m not in the remake,” Davis told Entertainment Tonight in April. “Oh, you were expecting that I would be? Yeah, no, you know what? Because my theory is that ghosts don’t age … Not that I have.”
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The actress added, “Our characters were stuck the way they looked when they died forever, so it’s been a while, it’s been a minute.”
On Wednesday, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice earned a 4 minute-plus ovation during its world premiere as the opener of the Venice International Film Festival. Burton returned to co-write (with Miles Millar) and direct the sequel, which also stars Monica Bellucci and Willem Dafoe.