Tim Burton's long-awaited sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, is now in theaters, and, as fans hoped it would, the movie does explain what happened to the original film's protagonists.
Though Michael Keaton's titular Ghost with the Most was obviously the main attraction in Tim Burton's horror comedy classic, the main characters were actually Adam and Barbara Maitland (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis).
The recently married couple are killed in a car accident in the first few minutes of the movie, and their displaced spirits wind up summoning Betelgeuse in an effort to drive the new owners of their house (Winona Ryder's Lydia Deetz and her family) away. Things don't exactly go according to plan, however.
Ultimately, Betelgeuse is banished, and the Deetzs and Maitlands agree to share the house.
Keaton, Ryder and Catherine O'Hara (who plays Lydia's mother) reprise their roles for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but Baldwin and Davis don't appear. The movie does reveal what happened to them, however.
At one point, Lydia's daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) asks what happened to their former "house-ghosts," and her mother explains that they found a "loophole" that allowed Adam and Barbara's spirits to move on to the afterlife. The characters aren't really brought up again, but Lydia does acknowledge how important they were to her when she was a teenager.
Davis explained why it wouldn't make sense for her to return as Barbara during a recent interview.
"No, I’m not. I’m not in the remake Oh, you were expecting that I would be? Yeah, no, you know what? Because my theory is that ghosts don’t age … Not that I have.”
“Our characters were stuck the way they looked when they died forever, so it’s been a while, it’s been a minute,” Davis went on. "I heard the trailer came out and somebody said they were crying, so I have to see the trailer.”
It's hard to argue with the logic. Betelgeuse is also a ghost, of course, but the bio-exorcists's freakish appearance allows Keaton to basically disappear behind the makeup.
Have you been to see the movie yet? If so, let us know what you thought in the comment section down below.
Beetlejuice is back! 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.
Burton, a genre unto himself, directs from a screenplay by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar (Wednesday), story by Gough & Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith (The LEGO Batman Movie), based on characters created by Michael McDowell & Larry Wilson. The film’s producers are Marc Toberoff, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Tommy Harper and Burton, with Sara Desmond, Katterli Frauenfelder, Gough, Millar, Brad Pitt, Larry Wilson, Laurence Senelick, Pete Chiappetta, Andrew Lary, Anthony Tittanegro, Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg executive producing.
Burton’s creatives behind the scenes includes director of photography Haris Zambarloukos (Meg 2: The Trench, Murder on the Orient Express); such previous and frequent collaborators as production designer Mark Scruton (Wednesday), editor Jay Prychidny (Wednesday), Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sleepy Hollow), Oscar-winning creature effects and special makeup FX creative supervisor Neal Scanlan (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Oscar-nominated composer Danny Elfman (Big Fish, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman); and Oscar-winning hair and makeup designer Christine Blundell (Topsy-Turvy).