Alex Winter Talks Frank Zappa Documentary, Crowdfunding And The 'Bill & Ted' Threequel

It’s the 25th anniversary of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey this year and it sounds like the threequel is still going ahead?

AW: It’s looking good. This is Hollywood so I don’t believe it’s happening until it’s coming out on VOD but we’re all working on the film everyday at the moment in terms of the pre-prep type work so it’s an active project. Hopefully we’ll be shooting it shortly.

Are you looking at a start date of end of this year or early next year?

AW: Hopefully the former, possibly the latter.

So you’re on board and Keanu’s also on board?

AW: How the **** would we make it if he wasn’t on board? People always ask if Keanu’s doing it and I’m like, ‘No, I’m making a Bill movie.’ Of course he’s in it. I can’t make a Bill & Ted movie without Keanu.

Have you seen a final script?

AW: Of course! We’ve been working on it for, like, six years. We’re knee deep in the script, it’s been written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon who wrote the first two, they are fantastic writers, and the script is great. We have a script, we have a director, we have a studio – we’re just trying to nail down a start date.

What about co-stars? Is there a wish list?

AW: The short answer is yes. I can’t really go further than that other than to say some people are going to returning from the original by the fact that they’re in it. There will be new people because obviously, sadly, Rufus (George Carlin) isn’t around anymore and they will be interesting actors too.

There will be new people because obviously, sadly, Rufus (George Carlin) isn’t around anymore and they will be interesting actors too.

The last film in the franchise was released 27 years ago, with a sequel in active development for almost a decade, so why has it taken so long for a new Bill & Ted movie to materialise?

Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, writer Ed Solomon – who, with Chris Matheson, created the characters and wrote both original movies – revealed fresh details about the film, called Bill & Ted Face the Music, and why it's proving so hard to pull together.

"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.

"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.

"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!"

Face the Music will see Winter and Reeves play middle-aged versions of Bill and Ted, who are now family men rather than young aspiring musicians. However, the death of actor / comedian George Carlin in 2008 posed a problem when it came to the character of Bill and Ted's mentor Rufus.

Solomon confirmed, however, that the new film will not only address the loss of Carlin, but serve as a tribute to the beloved comic and his character.

"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."

The threequel will see the older Bill and Ted travel back in time, Solomon revealed, to interact with both their past selves and Rufus – using footage from 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Strange things will once more be afoot at the Circle K...

"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.

"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...

"There's also a character in the movie named Kelly, which is George's daughter's name, who has a very significant role in the journey, so George is a deep, deep part of it."

Solomon confirmed that he's still in meetings trying to get Bill & Ted Face the Music made and that the film "keeps getting close" to a green-light... so what's actually preventing it from happening?

One issue, he explained, is that Hollywood prefers the idea of a Bill & Ted reboot, as opposed to a straight sequel. "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.

"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..."

Another obstacle is convincing financiers that Face the Music would make money at the box office, since the original movie "wasn't released [widely] internationally and didn't have a giant release in the States".

"But it's one of those movies that has grown over time," he continued. "I'm certain that whoever invests in this could make their money back, and hopefully a lot more.

"It's never gonna be a movie that me and Chris Matheson get rich on. 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.

"Chris and I have said this to each other many times, if the only thing we put into the world ever was this notion of 'Be excellent to each other', we could look each other in the eye and feel like we did something right. I really feel that, and I'm really proud of that."

‘Most Excellent!’ 27 years after we last saw the totally radical pairing of Ted “Theodore” Logan and Bill S. Preston Esq., Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are now confirmed to reprise their roles in a third Bill & Ted movie, I can reveal. Bloom is launching sales in Cannes on the long-gestating time time-travel comedy, which is called Bill & Ted Face The Music. The movie is likely to be one of the hottest properties at the market.

Currently in pre-production, the movie has been written by the franchise’s original creators Chris Matheson (Imagine That) and Ed Solomon (Men in Black) with Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) confirmed to direct. Scott Kroopf (Limitless) will produce together with Alex Lebovici and Steve Ponce of Hammerstone Studios, with Steven Soderbergh serving as an executive producer alongside Scott Fischer, John Ryan Jr., and John Santilli.

When we last picked up with the most audacious dudes they were time-traveling teenagers trying to pass history class and win the battle of the bands. Once prophesized to save the universe with their rock and roll, according to the production the new movie will see the two best friends as middle age men with family responsibilities who have still yet to fulfill their destiny. They’ve written thousands of tunes, but they have yet to write a good one, much less the greatest song ever written. With the fabric of time and space tearing around them, a visitor from the future warns the duo that only their music can save life as we know it. Out of luck and fresh out of inspiration, Bill and Ted set out on another time travel adventure — with the help of their daughters, a new crop of historical figures, and some sympathetic music legends — to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe as we know it.

MGM owns the rights to the film and will release in the U.S. under their Orion Pictures banner while Bloom is handling international sales. Endeavor Content negotiated the U.S. deal. The project has already piqued the interest of buyers in Cannes, we understand.

Winter and Reeves said today, “We couldn’t be more excited to get the whole band back together again. Chris and Ed wrote an amazing script, and with Dean at the helm we’ve got a dream team!”

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey became cultural landmarks for a certain generation — the nostalgia factor alone could be a big pull for some audiences — as well as lucrative comedies in their own right. The movie also comes at time when promising and scaled comedies are in short supply. Bloom’s Alex Walton said, “Fans of Bill and Ted have been waiting for Reeves and Winter to reunite since their last Bogus Journey in 1991. This is excellent!”

Reeves is currently in production on the third installment of the John Wick franchise. Winter has more recently transitioned to writing and directing with credits including Epix documentary Deep Web and VH1 documentary Downloaded. Next up he hasFrank Zappa doc Zappa.

In Cannes, Bloom is also selling Julius Onah’s Luce starring Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Tim Roth and Kelvin Harrison Jr.; Yuval Adler’s The Operative; Josh Trank’s Fonzo starring Tom Hardy; David Sandberg’s Kung Fury starring Michael Fassbender; Sam Levinson’s Assassination Nation, and Matthew Heineman’s A Private War starring Rosamund Pike.

Reeves is represented by WME and Ziffren Brittenham; Winter is represented by CAA, Forward Entertainment, Hollander Entertainment and Sloss Eckhouse LawCo; Parisot is represented by WME; and Hammerstone Studios is represented by Rosen Law Group.