Be Excellent To Each Other

Back in March some most excellent news came directly from Keanu Reeves who confirmed that certain people were in the midst of working on a another sequel to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure to follow the second installment of the time traveling Wild Stallyns exploits in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Now the other half of the radical duo has opened up about a potential sequel as MTV spoke with Alex Winter who said, "Now the cat's out of the bag, and the truth is that, yeah, we have finally hit upon an idea that we think is pretty great." This is certainly some exciting news for the decades old series, but don't expect it to happen immediately.

It's good to hear that recent rumblings from Reeves again saying that work was being done on a sequel isn't just smoke up our asses. Though he doesn't reveal any story details, Winter elaborates on the progression of the sequel:

"We kicked around the idea over the years and had always thought if we could make something that was as kind of genuine in spirit as the originals and without falling prey to kind of retro cynicism or something that was unnecessary, it would be worth doing. We've been working on it for the past couple of years, honing that idea and getting it into shape. [Screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon] are working on it now. The bottom line is that we still all feel like we need to sit down and look at a script and see if it's everything that it can be before we set about doing anything with it."

Since they're approaching these characters 20 years later, it only makes sense that we would see Bill and Ted 20 years later as well. Winter comments on how they're approaching the sequel:

"The essence of what we've always wanted to do is to make a 'Bill & Ted' movie. We don't want to make a cynical 'here's Bill and Ted — you guys are our kids, now YOU guys go be Bill and Ted and the franchise can live for another 25 years!' It's not that. It's a straight up, what's the funniest and most surprising take on where Bill and Ted would be right now if we stopped back in on them? That's what we're doing."

Sounds perfect. But what about losing one of the most integral parts of the Bill and Ted movies with the tragic death of comic George Carlin who played Rufus? Winter has an answer for that too:

"We're working our way through it right now. It's really complicated. He was such a big part of the spirit of the originals, and we've been trying to be clever about making a new one that can handle the Carlin issue. It's actually stopped us in the past — why do it without Rufus? We've been delicate about moving around him."

They won't be re-casting the character so there's no worries there, but now the biggest question is how soon the project will get off the ground. Winter simply says, "it's a question of when the script is done, when Reeves is free, when I'm free, and getting the whole damn thing up and running. It's a whole process. The first thing we have to do is see if we've got a script that we all agree on." Well I hope Matheson and Solomon move swiflty on the script, because I'd love to see both Reeves and Winter back in rare form as Bill and Ted. We know Reeves is up for the reunion.

I'm not altogether this is a good idea. Has there ever been a good "resurrect a story 20 years later with a new film" film?

"All I said about b&t @newbeverly is me, Keanu, Ed & Chris have kicked ideas around over the years. Everything else on the net is conjecture."

Given that he is now four years shy of 50, it would probably be best to make that third Bill & Ted film sooner rather than later. Reeves tell me that there are writers working on it as we speak, and that he'd love to play that good-natured dimwit Ted one last time. "We'll see what they come up with," he says. He's in such cheery spirits that I don't mind mentioning the matter of Sad Keanu, but there's a definite downwards shift in room temperature when I do. It's not that he's frosty about it exactly; he just seems nonplussed whenever anything pertaining to his image comes up.

it's a question of when the script is done, when Reeves is free, when I'm free

Winter's schedule is only slightly more cluttered that Carlin's.

Get real.

Oh, I'm sure your availability will be the biggest hurdle, Alex.

BILL & TED 3 Pulls The GALAXY QUEST Director Into Their Phone Booth!!

The Kidd here...

We've been hearing talk of BILL & TED 3 for quite some time, with both Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter discussing all the work they've been putting in writing the sequel in order to make sure they've got the characters just right at this point in their lives and consistent with EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and BOGUS JOURNEY. Well, BILL & TED 3 moved from being just talk today to being a lot closer to action, now that Vulture reports that GALAXY QUEST director Dean Parisot is attached to direct.

Strange things indeed are afoot at the Circle K.

Reeves and Winter have been a lock to return, but BILL & TED creators Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson are also involved, having worked to hammer out the script with Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan.

MGM owns the rights to the original BILL & TED, but that doesn't particularly mean they'll be entirely behind the sequel. Right now, the new film is being shopped around everywhere else, in the hopes of setting up a co-financing deal between MGM and whomever, since MGM is still recovering from their previous financial troubles.

But there's plenty of time for those deals to be arranged as Dean Parisot is set to shoot the RED sequel, so production for BILL & TED 3 would need to wait for those committments to be fulfilled, but that doesn't sound like much of a problem. BILL & TED 3 looks like it's really going to happen, and...

SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!!!