File this under “I’ll believe it when I see it”, but it seems like the long-fabled Bill & Ted 3 might actually happen. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter have been talking about it for years—last year they appeared in Entertainment Weekly teasing the project—but now things are looking super official as Winter and Reeves took to Twitter to announce the movie is really, actually, totally happening for real this time, and has a release date of August 21, 2020 (it will film this summer). PARTY ON DUDES! EXCELLENT!
The world is about to get a lot more excellent. Watch this special announcement from your two favorite dudes! 8.21.20 🎸⚡️ pic.twitter.com/miOtBhinlC
— Bill & Ted 3 (@BillandTed3) March 20, 2019
Bill & Ted were a seminal part of my childhood. Like Indiana Jones and Star Wars, I was too young to see the movies in theaters, but I watched them religiously at home. My brother and I rented Excellent Adventure so often we wore out the tape, and the video store manager ended up buying us a copy of our own (I miss local video stores). Also I will defend Bogus Journey to the death. Any movie that casts William Sadler as Death, and homages The Seventh Seal, is a winner in my book—not to mention this is the movie that gave us STATION. Bogus Journey is an underappreciated sequel, don’t @ me. When I was a kid, Bill & Ted felt like a secret language. Everyone knew “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” and “Luke, I’m not your father”. But it seemed like only my brother and I knew “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K”. And “Be excellent to each other” became a quick way to find kindred spirits at new schools and summer camp. Of all the pop culture of my childhood, Bill & Ted is one of the few things that felt like it really belonged to us kids. Adults didn’t get it—or even like it. And now a third movie is being made because we grew up and didn’t let go of our love for these stupid movies.
The third movie is subtitled Face the Music, and frankly, the concept is pretty genius. Bill and Ted, whose music is supposed to save the universe, HAVEN’T WRITTEN THE F-CKING SONG. I mean, of COURSE they haven’t. Have you met Bill and Ted? These guys can’t even do their homework without divine intervention. There is no way they actually wrote the world peace song. I love this concept because it’s true to the characters. It’s not “Bill and Ted thirty years later, are super famous and running the world”. It’s “Bill and Ted are still unreliable losers”.
Because of course they would never get around to writing the song, it’s too much pressure. Can you imagine the burden of learning, at seventeen, that you are going to save the universe? And also you are a SoCal slacker with no real ambition OR TALENT and this weight is put on your shoulders? Bill and Ted would TOTALLY run in the opposite direction of all that responsibility. I’m super here for Bill & Ted 3, even though I am still suspicious of it ever happening because it has been teased for so long. But I will be so, so glad to revisit the Circle K and see what new strange things are afoot.