Alex Winter has confirmed that a third Bill & Ted movie is definitely in the works, with a script idea already in place…
Following the news earlier this week that Keanu Reeves was interested in reviving the characters of Bill and Ted for a belated third adventure, we receive a confirmation from co-star Alex Winter that Bill & Ted 3 really is going to be made.
"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," Winter told MTV Movies via Twitter. "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."
Far from a fanciful dream on the part of Reeves, Winter revealed that a script has been in furtive development for some two years, and is the work of the original two films' writers, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon.
"We've been working on it for the past couple of years, honing that idea and getting it into shape," Winter said. "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."
Winter also broke the welcome news that Bill and Ted won't be stepping aside for a younger version of themselves, as is thought to be the case with the still-in-development Ghostbusters 3.
"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."
Neither will Rufus, played by the late, great, George Carlin, be played by a different actor. It was a notion that Winter quickly dismissed as "horrible".
"It doesn't really work when you're pretending that other people are those people," Winter said. "No, we're definitely not going to recast Rufus."
There's no word yet as to when we can expect the third Bill & Ted movie, though Winter joked that "We would love to not be doing this when we're 60."
So, what can we expect from a third Bill & Ted movie, particularly as almost 20 years have already elapsed since the last instalment, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey? Have the pair's guitar playing skills improved? Has their band, Wyld Stallyns, enjoyed stellar success, or are they touring pubs in a battered Transit van? Only time will tell.