For years now we’ve been getting periodic updates from Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter about the plans for the final chapter in the Bill and Ted trilogy. Once again, they have a script that everyone likes but they’ve just got some details that need to be ironed out.
The plot, as it’s been every time this story’s come up, is that 20 years after the events of the previous films the Wyld Stallyns still haven’t written the song that’s going to change the world. They’re in their 40s and not only are they still slackers, but they’ve got that so-daunting-how-can-you-even-try? kind of pressure hanging over them.
Winter tells Yahoo! UK:
“[W]hat if you’re middle-aged, haven’t really grown up and you’re supposed to have saved the world and maybe, just maybe, you kinda haven’t?
There’s many versions of ourselves in this movie. [It’s] answering the question: ‘What happened to these guys?’ They’re supposed to have done all this stuff, they weren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree, what happened 20 years later? To answer that question in a comedic way felt rich with possibility.”
He went on to discuss the development process:
“Me and Keanu and [original writers] Chris [Matheson] and Ed [Solomon] are all very close and have remained close over the years. We’d be having dinner and we’d be like, ‘is there a point? Is there a way in?’ We’d kick an idea around and go no and we would leave it alone for a bunch of years. I guess about four years ago we had an idea together that we thought was pretty great. I think it was because so much time had gone by that it was great.
It was really just the four of us and we were really very measured about it. It took time to construct the idea, it took Chris and Ed time to build the first draft. Then we put a producer together and got a director (Galaxy Quest helmer Dean Parisot). We’ve been working on drafts for the last couple of years. The script’s been finished for a while, but comedy is so specific. We’re in that world where producers are on, financiers are on and we’re just working and reworking the script.”
At the end of the day, though, Bill and Ted 3 has been coming forever and isn’t really any closer today than it was the last time it was brought up or the time before that.
