It's been nearly thirty years since William "Bill" S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore "Ted" Logan (Keanu Reeves) last graced our screens, but the rockin' duo will be back for BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC. The upcoming sequel takes place decades after it was prophesied that Bill and Ted would save the universe with the greatest song ever written, but the pair have slid since into middle age. When the fabric of space and time begins tearing around them, Bill and Ted must seek out the song that will restore balance to the universe.
Arriving so many years after BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY, you might think that the creative team would want to give BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC a slick makeover, but that's far from the case. While speaking with Total Film, Keanu Reeves said that due to the cheap budget, the upcoming sequel will have the same scrappy charm as the originals.
We're still a pretty scrappy independent movie. It's part of the charm! This movie is very much in the spirit of the other two films across the board. So there are Easter egg cameos, and there are other important musical figures that are prominent. I don’t want to give too much of it away but the spirit of it, all the way down to the soundtrack… it’s a Bill & Ted movie, straight up.
"People will recognise them as who they are from the get-go," Alex Winter added. "They haven’t turned into different people. But a lot of the comic conceit comes from that idea. If you’ve got two normally unstoppable, persevering characters like this who are faced with a pretty great challenge, and they’re older, and they’re dealing with the realities of life on top of the challenges they’re facing, then what does that do?" In reference to the budget, BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC director Dean Parisot said that they probably had the same amount of money one would typically get to make a television pilot. "We had to make a movie that takes place in Hell, and has the destruction of space and time, and the future prosthetics," Parisot said. "It was logistically very difficult to make. What made it easier to make was that almost everybody I had worked with over the years – well-known artists with a collection of awards under their belts – took incredible pay cuts, and did anything to accomplish this project." At the moment, BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC is still slated to hit theaters on August 28, 2020, but I'd be shocked if it doesn't move (or wind up on a streaming service).