ENTERTAINMENT
Why don’t Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin appear in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’?
After a three-decade wait, the sequel to ‘Beetlejuice’ has hit theatres - but some original cast members are absent.
Beetlejuice is back. Once again directed by Tim Burton, the sequel to the iconic film has arrived in movie theatres, more than 30 years after the first instalment was released.
Fans of the 1988 picture will be able to see some of the original cast again in the follow-up, entitled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Michael Keaton returns as the titular character alongside Winona Ryder, who is back as Lydia Deetz, and Catherine O’Hara, who reprises her role as Lydia’s stepmother, Delia.
However, at least two main cast members from the first film are missing: Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis. Burton has clarified their absence.
Why aren’t Davis and Baldwin in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?
In an interview with People late last month, the director revealed that the sequel has a different focus. “I think the thing was for me I didn’t want to just tick any boxes,” Burton said. “So even though they [Baldwin and Davis] were such an amazing integral part of the first one, I was focusing on something else.”
He added: “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. And that [would] be the nucleus of it. I couldn’t have made this personally back in 1989 or whatever.”
In the first film, Baldwin and Davis play Adam and Barbara Maitland, a recently deceased couple whose spirits are confined to their country home in Winter River, Connecticut. When the Deetz family become the home’s new owners, the Maitlands summon the ‘bio-exorcist’ ghost Beetlejuice to scare them away.
*The following paragraph contains plot spoilers for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
In the new film, Lydia Deetz’s teenage daughter Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega, asks her mother what happened to the ghosts she encountered as a teenager - the characters played by Baldwin and Davis. In the period between the two films’ storylines, Lydia explains, they used a ‘loophole’ to escape their confinement in the house, Richard Lawson reveals in Vanity Fair.
As well as Ortega, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s new cast members include Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti and Willem Dafoe.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - watch the trailer:
What is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice about?
The official synopsis for Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice reads: “After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River.
“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.”