It's been nearly a decade since we've received the last Bill & Ted film, albeit a third installment has been in the works for quite some time. In speaking recently with Digital Spy, writer Ed Solomon in turn dished on the upcoming Bill & Ted Face the Music.
"We have been working for almost 10 years to get this thing made; Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves, Chris Matheson, me... we have a director – Dean Parisot, who did Galaxy Quest – Steven Soderbergh is one of our producers. We have a wonderful assembly of people," says Solomon, who created the characters and wrote both original movies alongside Matheson.
"We have a script that we really are proud of, that we worked very hard on, that we've done many iterations of – and we did it on spec, meaning we spent years working on it because we wanted to get it right, creatively. This is not, 'Hey let's all cash-in on the Bill & Ted thing for money' – this is the opposite. This is, 'We love these characters, they've been with us for our whole lives' – Chris and me, and Alex and Keanu – and we wanted to visit them again as middle-aged men. We thought it would be really fun, and funny, and sweet."
Solomon then went on to add: "We really think there's another movie to be done that is the opposite of cynical, that is actually made with love. [It'll be] made with love and affection for the characters, and affection for the fans of Bill & Ted. All of us really want to give the people who love Bill & Ted, and people who haven't even discovered Bill & Ted yet, a movie that is worthy of their affection. And we're trying!"
As Digital Spy points out, Bill & Ted Face the Music will find Winter and Reeves reprises their roles as Bill and Ted, now however as middle-aged family men as opposed to aspiring musicians. Bill and Ted's mentor, played by actor/comedian George Carlin, passed away in 2008, as the upcoming picture will then address the loss and serve as a tribute to the fallen cast member.
"George Carlin is so deeply missed by all of us. There is a... not just an homage to him, it's more than that. His absence is a part of the whole movie," Solomon notes.
Footage from 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure will be highlighted in the new movie when Bill and Ted travel back in time to interact with their past selves, as well as Rufus.
"There's actually a scene – one of my favourite scenes in the whole movie – where middle-aged, 50-year-old Bill and Ted return to the Circle K and see their teen selves and Rufus, and actually interact with their teenage selves, played by their actual teenage selves," says Solomon.
"They return to that scene at the Circle K when Bill and Ted first meet themselves, only now they're watching their younger selves and looking at the exuberance and joy that they had at that time in their lives. And they see Rufus, they see George Carlin."
And while Solomon and company have been hard at work on Bill & Ted Face the Music, there are still various issues keeping the movie from seeing the light of day.
"We are having issues raising money for it, getting it financed, because what we get all the time – all the time – is people wanting to reboot it," Solomon discloses. "It's 'Let's do Bill & Ted with new teenagers', but what we wanna do is the story of Bill and Ted as middle-aged men, and tell what we think could be a really funny, and actually really moving, story about their lives and where they are now – their families, their kids..."
"It's never gonna be a movie that me and Chris Matheson get rich on," the writer added. "I've never made much money off of Bill & Ted. We never get profits from it, our salaries were very small from it, but it's the one movie in my life that... if I'd never done anything but Bill & Ted, I would've been really happy."
For more from Solomon on Bill & Ted Face the Music, head on over to Digital Spy.
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