After many years of rumours, scuttlebutt, and spruiking on Alex Winter’s behalf (I believe there was also a producer trying to get a third film up at one stage – might be the same chap behind this one, not sure), we can finally confirm that a new “Bill & Ted” movie is indeed in the works.
Unfortunately, it isn’t the one you’ve been hoping for – the one where Winter and Keanu Reeves return to play 40-something version’s of the iconic dags. Instead, the new “Bill & Ted” is somewhat of a series restart.
Errr.
Bill & Ted are two Year 10 students, on the verge of failing their school year (the principal, Principal Baumheiser, is their main adversary), when they discover a way to travel through time – yes, it’s by way of a phone again, albeit a funkier one than that in the original – to meet some of the characters they’re supposed to have learnt about at school. They met Gandhi, Calamity Jane… the list goes on. The next week, Bill & Ted have to present a “full presentation of every class” they’re failing, which is all of them.
Oh, and as for Wyld Stallions? They’re retired. Bill & Ted’s group, in this film, is ‘Atomic Gorillas’. Ha.
The pages of the script that I’ve seen indicate that the film has been updated for the audience of today – there’s a few less “Whoa’s” than there was in the original, and the screenwriter has gone out of his way to throw in a bunch of references to all the cool and hip stuff the youngin’s are into today (for instance, Bill & Ted are worried that they’re going to miss “The Dark Knight”). It definitely reads like the old “Bill & Ted”…. But not entirely. Lets see who they cast.
Assume this will go straight to DVD – along with all the other sequels MGM’s developing right now.