How Beetlejuice Kicks Out Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is finally here.

The sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 classic, again directed by Burton, brings back a number of your favorite characters from the original, including Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), her stepmother Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara), and of course the most self-aware ghost, Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton). There are a few exceptions, of course. Notably, Jeffrey Jones does not return, as his character Charles Deetz is killed off during a stop-motion animation sequence. (This has as much to do with narrative drive as it does with Jones’ status as a real-life sex offender off-camera.)

But perhaps the most glaring omission from Beetlejuice is Barbara and Adam Maitland, played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin. Not only were they the main characters in the first film, but the sequel makes a point of returning to the Maitlands’ home in Winter River, Connecticut, including the model town that Adam was obsessed with in the first film.

So let’s look at how exactly the film explains this (and how much was described in interviews). But Warning spoilers.

How does Beetlejuice Beetlejuice explain the absence of the characters?

When they return to the Winter River house, Lydia’s daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) asks her mother what happened to the Maitlands. Shouldn’t they still be tied to the house? Lydia said they found a “loophole” and “moved on.”

That’s all?

That’s it.

Will the gap ever be described?

No, they are simply not there.

What was said about her absence outside of the film?

Last month, Burton told People: “I think for me, it was a case of not just checking any boxes. So even though they were such an amazing, integral part of the first one, I was focused on something else.” Earlier this year, Geena Davis told Entertainment Tonight: “I’m not in the remake. Oh, you expected that? Yeah, no, you know what? Because my theory is that ghosts don’t age… Not that I did that!”

But isn’t Keaton a ghost and he has aged, right?

He did. But he’s covered in traditional, scary makeup. Maybe they were worried about what Baldwin and Davis would look like without makeup? Or maybe they didn’t want to use fancy digital anti-aging technology?

Oh.

Yes, from a narrative perspective, that doesn’t make much sense, but as screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar explained to us, the focus of Beetlejuice was more on the three generations of Deetz women than on the crazy ghost shenanigans (though there’s still plenty of that).

Maybe they’ll come back for the third one!

Now we cook with gas!

“Beetlejuice Beetljuice” is now in theaters.