'We're happy with what we wrote,' Winter tells MTV News, confirming that he and Keanu Reeves reprised their characters while developing script.
By Josh Wigler, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
Alex Winter
Photo: MTV News
God gave rock and roll to you, and if you're lucky, he'll give you a brand new "Bill and Ted" adventure as well! That's the plan, at least, according to one half of the dimwitted duo: Alex Winter, who starred as Bill Preston Esq. in both "Excellent Adventure" and "Bogus Journey," isn't just hoping for a "Bill and Ted" reunion, he's getting close to making it actually happen.
"I think the reality is that there probably will be another one," Winter told MTV News during a recent interview about his new Napster documentary, "Downloaded." Indeed, Winter and co-star Keanu Reeves both recently confirmed that a third "Bill and Ted" script is finished (and totally excellent). Of course, given how long it's taken to get the third movie off the ground — "Bogus Journey," their last appearance, hit theaters in 1991 — arriving at a universally agreed-upon idea wasn't an exact science.
"We just kicked ideas around [over the years] and eventually, we kicked one idea around that clicked," Winter said. "It felt timely. Funnily enough, it felt better because so much time had gone by. What would it be like to revisit those guys now? From a comedy standpoint, it felt kind of cool to revisit two galvanized comic characters a chunk of time later, [exploring] what you can do with that from a comedy perspective."
Though much time has passed between the last "Bill and Ted" and now, Winter admitted that it's "very possible" that Bill and Ted themselves, despite their age, haven't grown up with the times — though he would neither confirm nor deny their current maturity level. What he would say, however, is that the next "Bill and Ted" adventure would focus heavily on the rock and roll spirit that's always been present in the franchise.
"What's happened to rock and roll in the last 20 years? The movie's going to get in and play with some of that stuff," he said. "Where is rock? Where are we? What's happened to the whole idea of saving the world — or what hasn't happened? There's a lot to play with there."
There's so much to play with, in fact, that Winter and Reeves both slipped into character on more than one occasion while developing the new "Bill and Ted" script.
"Yes, we did. It's really sad how easy it was [to get back into character]," he laughed. "You go away and do all this other stuff and go, 'I'm not Bill, that's absurd!' ... And then me and Reeves got together, and suddenly we're the characters again. We didn't even mean to. We just started riffing on it. When we were doing notes and me and Reeves started riffing on the dialogue, it's just, oh my god. Yeah, it's in there. God knows."
"Bill and Ted 3," which has a title that Winter won't reveal just yet ("But it'll say it all," he promised), still has obstacles in the way. No, there are no Evil Us's to consider, but the script does not yet have a green-light. According to Winter, though, he's more than happy with the project as it stands, even if it never makes it to the big screen.
"It's something we think is a very fun thing. We had a lot of fun developing it, and the guys are amazing writers," Winter said of working with longtime "Bill and Ted" writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. "We had a lot of fun with the script. We're happy with where it's at now. If it goes forward, great. If it doesn't, we're happy with what they wrote and what we came up with."
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