There have been talks of ‘Bill & Ted 3’ for years, but it looks like it’s actually going to be a reality.
Released in 1989, ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ followed a pair of metalhead slackers – played by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter – as they travelled through time in a phone booth. The pair reprised their popular roles for a 1991 sequel called ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’.
The third instalment has been in the works since 2010, with Reeves admitting in 2013 that: “there’s darkness out there that’s keeping it from happening”.
Later that year he confirmed the movie was in the works, saying: “We are trying to put it together.”
Fast forward to 2016 and the movie still hasn’t been made, but Alex Winter confirms it’s in active pre-production.
Then in 2017, when asked about the status of the film, Reeves replied; “Bill and Ted are still alive. The writers have a story and we’re trying to make it.”
Now, ‘Bill & Ted’ co-creator Ed Solomon has revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he’s actually written a complete script for the third film with fellow co-creator Chris Matheson.
It was written on spec (without already having being commissioned) as they wanted to “get it right”.
“We wanted to have it be something that we — all four of us, Chris and I, Alex and Keanu — could stand behind, and know we’re doing this for the right reasons,” Solomon explains.
So what’s been the hold up?
“We’ve been to the altar a few times,” he tells EW. “We get rejected right about the ‘now you may kiss the bride’ part of it.”
The script is called ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ and finds the duo ‘still struggling to complete the great work of their life’.
“You’re told you’re gonna save the world,” Matheson says. “And now you’re 50 and you haven’t done it. Now they’re married, and it affects their marriages, and it affects their relationships with their kids, and it affects their everything.”
Solomon says they’re “hoping to close a deal with some financiers” and hope to have “news that will stick” in the next month or so.
Dean Parisot will direct the movie, with original producer Scott Kroopf alongside Steven Soderbergh.
Bill Sadler will return to play Death.
Excellent.