The first-look images have arrived for Bill & Ted Face the Music. Before he made his name as an action star, Keanu Reeves played the lovable slacker musician Theodore “Ted” Logan opposite Alex Winter as his BFF, William “Bill” S. Preston, Esq., in 1989’s time-travel comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The pair reunited two years later for the sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, but it took nearly three decades for a third film to land a green-light. Reeves, Winter, and franchise writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon never gave up on the movie in that time, and it finally went into production this past summer.

Titled Bill & Ted Face the Music, the film was directed by Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) and picks up with the eponymous duo in the present-day. Now middle-aged with kids of their own, the film finds Bill and Ted still trying to create the song for their band, Wyld Stallyns, that will usher in the future utopia they learned about all the way back in 1989’s Excellent Adventure. Before they know it, though, they’re pulled into a wild adventure to save the world alongside their daughters and - as seen in the newly-released photos - an old friend of theirs.

EW has unveiled the first images from Bill & Ted Face the Music, providing an official look at Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) and Brigette Lundy-Paine (Atypical) as, respectively, Bill and Ted’s daughters, Thea and Billie, in addition to William Sadler as Death (reprising his role from Bogus Journey). The five are joined in this new film by actor-musician Kid Cudi as himself, who “gets mysteriously thrown around through various times, because all time and space is coming unglued” in the movie, according to Parisot. You can check out the photos below.

Speaking to EW, Matheson explained Bill & Ted Face the Music’s plot gets underway when an “emissary from the future” shows up in the present-day, telling our intrepid heroes they’ve got “literally 80 minutes” to come up with their world-changing music “or all of reality will come to an end”. It sounds like a fittingly madcap story for a Bill & Ted movie, but also one about the challenges of being a parent with unfulfilled dreams - or, in Bill & Ted’s case, their destiny - and trying to leave a better world behind for your children. Belated comedy sequels are infamous for bringing back beloved characters without allowing them to grow or face new challenges that come with aging (looking at you, Dumb and Dumber To), but it sounds like Bill & Ted Face the Music is trying to avoid doing that. That’s not to say Bill and Ted will be rocket scientists when they return, but they’ve managed to successfully raise their daughters - so, presumably, the pair will be a tad wiser, if still plenty dim-witted.

In a sense, the many, many delays may help Bill & Ted Face the Music in the end. The sequel is not only arriving at a time when nostalgia for the Bill & Ted films is as strong as it’s ever been, but when Reeves is enjoying a career renaissance powered by the John Wick franchise and his recent scene-stealing appearances in acclaimed movies like Always Be My Maybe (where he played “himself”) and Toy Story 4 (where he voiced the animated Duke Caboom). It’s also on its way at a point when Reeves and Winter are the perfect age to play goofball dads opposite a pair of up and comers in Weaving and Lundy-Paine, and deliver a healthy dose of heart and humor alike with their performances. Here’s hoping Bill & Ted Face the Music is as - what else - Excellent! as everyone wants it to be, then.

Source: EW

  • Bill and Ted 3 Release Date: 2020-08-28