Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was released on Max on Dec. 6, and it's already the No. 1 movie on the platform as of Dec. 9. Are we shocked by this? No, not one bit! Fans had been waiting for a long time for this sequel to the 1988 horror classic to come out. After being released in theaters in September, the hit horror-comedy finally made its way to Max three months later. It's the movie that everyone's watching and can't stop talking about, and we completely understand why.
Taking place many years after the events of the first film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice centers around a now adult Lydia Deetz, who hosts her own paranormal talk show called "Ghost House." She has a seemingly charming boyfriend named Rory and a teenage daughter with whom she's estranged, Astrid.
After finding out from her stepmother Delia that someone in the family has passed away, Lydia drops everything and returns to her hometown of Winter River with Rory and Astrid. While there, she attends the funeral of her loved one and tries to figure out what to do with their old house. But things take a turn for the worse when the portal to the afterlife is accidentally opened. The infamous bio-exorcist, Beetlejuice, is eventually called on for help, and of course, he only creates more trouble for the Deetz family.
There were several original cast members from the 1988 film who returned for the sequel, such as Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice), Winona Ryder (Lydia Deetz), and Catherine O'Hara (Delia Deetz). However, OG cast members like Jeffrey Jones (Charles Deetz), Alec Baldwin (Adam Maitland), and Geena Davis (Barbara Maitland) did not reprise their roles. Jones' absence in the sequel is believed to be because of his legal troubles. But why didn't Baldwin and Davis return? Here's what we know.
In Beetlejuice (1988), Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play Adam and Barbara Maitland. After tragically passing away in a car accident, the loving couple returns as ghosts and are trapped in their home. When a new family, aka the Deetz, moves into their house and begins remodeling it, the Maitlands try their best to scare them away but to no avail. That's when they decide to call on the chaotic bio-exorcist, Beetlejuice, for assistance.
Beetlejuice ends with the Maitlands and the Deetz families coming to an understanding and agreeing to coexist in the same home peacefully. Since everything ended well for Adam and Barbara in the original film, why couldn't they return in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?
Well, it was director Tim Burton's decision. In an August 2024 interview with People, Burton told the news outlet that the reason why Baldwin and Davis aren't in the sequel is because he wanted to tell a new story that didn't involve the Maitlands. He told People, "I think the thing was for me I didn't want to just tick any boxes. So even though they were such an amazing integral part of the first one, I was focusing on something else."
Spoilers from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ahead.
Although Adam and Barbara aren't shown in the sequel at all, viewers do find out what happened to them. There's a scene in the film where Astrid asks Lydia what happened to the ghosts she used to live with, and Lydia replies by telling her that they used a loophole to escape the house they were confined to and cross over to the afterlife.
According to one of the movie's writers, Alfred Gough, Baldwin and Davis were initially supposed to make cameos in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. But the idea ended up being scrapped. Gough told Entertainment Weekly in a September 2024 interview that in an early draft of the sequel, Adam and Barbara were to show up at the end of the film. He told EW, "It's funny with the Maitlands because we asked Tim [Burton] and we went back and forth. There was a version where they just showed up at the end, but the problem is they're ghosts. So they kind of needed to look like they were 35, which was never going to happen."
So, it looks like there are two reasons on why Baldwin and Davis do not appear in the sequel. One is that they had to look the part (in their mid-30s). Baldwin is 66 years old, and Davis is 68 years old in real life. The second reason is that Burton didn't want the focus to be on their characters anymore. He felt like Adam and Barbara's complete story was told in the first film.
You can stream Beetlejuice Beetlejuice now only on Max.