Tim Burton didn’t want to “check any boxes” when rewording Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis node Beetle juice continuation.
The pair played ghost couple Adam and Barbara Maitland from the original 1988 film, but the filmmaker didn’t feel their presence was necessary for the story he wanted to tell. Beetlejuice Beetle Juicewhich focuses on the Deetz family.
He said People Magazine: “I think the issue was that, for me, I didn’t want to just tick any boxes. So while they were an amazing integral part of the first one, I was focusing on something else.”
READ MORE: We ate everything at Denny’s Beetlejuice Menu
Adam and Barbara summon the titular trickster ghoul, played by Michael Keaton, after they drown in a river and become ghosts. They have Beetlejuice scare the new family that moves into their house. Charlie and Delia Deetz can’t see them, but their death-obsessed daughter Lydia can.
Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara reprise their roles as Lydia and Delia, while Jenna Ortega plays the former’s daughter, Astrid Deetz.
Burton added: “A sequence like that, it really had to do with time. That was my hook for it, the three generations of mother, daughter, granddaughter. And that (would be) the core of it. I couldn’t have done that in person in 1989 or something.”
Time has passed and Lydia is now a mother, and Ryder recently admitted that she initially had a hard time seeing Lydia grow out of her goth phase and become a mother.
She told /Film: “I think certainly, I never imagined Lydia having kids or being in any kind of relationship. I always thought she would probably be in her own world as she got older. Just kind of up in the attic and happy, but alone.”
THE Strange things The actress added that once she started working with Jenna and Justin Theroux — who plays Lydia’s husband, Rory — on the project, she was able to better understand this new version of the character.
She explained: “I think when we got there, when Jenna and I got together and when Justin came on board… I mean, I think everyone who’s as old as I am now, we’ve all been through those things where you’re like, ‘What was I thinking, in terms of the relationship that I have?’”
“But I don’t know, with young Lydia, I don’t think she would ever expect to be in front of a camera.”
Beetlejuice Beetle Juice opens in theaters on September 6.
Jokes in the original Beetle juice This won’t fly in the sequel
These jokes made Beetle juice in a comedy classic. But times have changed since the original film was released…