Tim Burton Explains Why Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis Aren't in the Beetlejuice Sequel (Exclusive)

You can try saying their names three times, but Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis won’t appear Beetlejuice Beetlejuicesequel to the 1988 horror comedy directed by Tim Burton.

In the original film, Baldwin, now 66, and Davis, now 68, played Adam and Barbara Maitland, Connecticut residents who become ghosts when they accidentally run off a bridge while swerving to avoid being hit by a dog.

Their spirits are confined to the charming house they lived in, which is bought by the eccentric Deetz family: Charles (Jeffrey Jones), his daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) and Charles’ wife Delia (Catherine O’Hara).

Not wanting to share a house with the Deetzes, the Maitlands turn to the rude and rude demon Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to help them drive out the new residents.

Although many of the original cast members are returning for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — including Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara — Baldwin and Davis not among them.

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The cast of the original ‘Beetlejuice.’.

Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

The sequel explains how the Maitlands found a “loophole” that allowed them to leave the house from which they were imprisoned.

Burton, for his part, wanted to dive into a whole new story that didn’t involve the Maitlands. “I think the thing for me was that I didn’t want to just check any box. So even though they were such an amazing integral part of the first one, I focused on something else,” he tells PEOPLE.

He continues that it took many years to make the film he wanted, which finds Delia and Lydia, now living elsewhere, returning to their Connecticut home for patriarch Charles’ funeral.

Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.’.

Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros.

Lydia, who was a teenager in the original, is now a mother with her own teenage daughter, Astrid (played by Wednesday breakout Jenna Ortega). Astrid is just as grumpy to Lydia as Lydia once was to her stepmother Delia. For reasons we won’t get into here, Beetlejuice returns, of course.

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“A sequel like this, it really had to do with the times,” says Burton. “That was my hook in it, three generations of mother, daughter, granddaughter. And that [would] be its core. I couldn’t have done this personally in 1989 or whatever.”

Jenna Ortega and Winona Ryder in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.’.

Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros.

Keaton previously told PEOPLE that he and Burton have discussed revisiting over the years bug juicebut they should have nailed it.

“We thought, ‘You’ve got to get this right. I was hesitant and cautious, and he was probably just as hesitant and cautious,” says Keaton. “When we got there, I said, ‘Okay, let’s just go.’ ”

In April, Davis confirmed Party tonight that she won’t be back — and offered her own theory as to why. “I’m not in the remake,” she said. “Oh, you expected me to be? Yes, no, you know what? Because my theory is that ghosts don’t age… I don’t!”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice it’s in theaters on September 6.

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Source: HIS Education