So, the pressure gets even more.
Bill and Ted, to get to find the song, end up going into the future."
As developments go, this one is mostun-excellent.
Everett Collection
“I told them, in advance, I’m going to be really terrible.
We’ve known each other for [so long] now, Keanu and I.”
Nor will it be the last.
Orion Pictures
The film was originally set to be released in theaters Aug. 21.
Solomon, 59, isn’t joking about his association withBill & Tedhaving lasted his entire adult life.
“This was at a little theatre that we rented out on Sunday nights for like, $40.
There was no audience.
We would just improvise and play and throw ideas out.
The suggestion that night was ‘Two teenage boys who knownothingabout anything, but were talking about world affairs.’
Ed and I played the two boys and we just started talking to each other.
‘How’s it going, Bill?’
‘How’s it going, Ted?’
They were very comfortable to us early on.”
The pair continued to improvise as Bill and Ted when they visited a coffee shop later that night.
“It was kind of uncanny.
I’ve never had an experience like it.
And we loved them.
They were really fun.
We had no idea we were going to put them in a movie.”
But they never forgot about Bill and Ted.
“We would write letters back and forth and we would talk on the phone,” says Matheson.
The first story was, Well, we’re going to have them be responsible for everythingbad.
But we couldn’t do that, because that means they’re responsible for the Holocaust.
We didn’t want that obviously.
It’s not very comedic.
So, then, we just sent them through history."
“Honestly, I remember the moment we wrote it.
We were in a coffee shop in Westwood, and we were doing a rewrite.
We had done a draft of what was then calledBill & Ted’s Time Van.
I just remember we were like, ‘What do they say when they get to the future?’
And we were just like, ‘Be excellent to each other and party on!
It was just,of course, this is what they would say.”
The film also introduced the iconic franchise character of Death, played by William Sadler.
And then, everyone went their separate ways.
It was there that the writers suggested the quartet reteam for a newBill & Tedmovie.
“We thought it was a really great idea and the guys went off to write.”
Solomon and Matheson were insistent that the script fully reflect the fact that the two main characters had aged.
“We wanted to play to the truth of where they really would be in life.
Chris and I both had changed a lot, and so had Alex and Keanu.
What would these characters be like if they were approaching fifty and their lives hadn’t worked out?”
“They’ve grown up,” says Matheson.
I love Austin Powers and I love Zoolander, I love Ron Burgundy.
I don’t know how much you cangrowthose characters up.
That was the starting point."
Solomon and Matheson spent a year batting around ideas with the two actors and then wrote a first draft.
“But we wanted to get it right on a creative level.
We didn’t want to craft it for executives.
We wanted it to be coming from the heart and internally from the four of us.
“This is a complicated question,” says Matheson.
“This is something that Ed and I thought long and hard about.
The idea that there was any outward pressure to be, like, PC, is ridiculous.
That’s absolutely not true.
Between us, we thought it was more interesting.
By the way, the two little babies who played little Bill and little Ted,weregirls.
So, it’s fun.”
“I’ve known Ed Solomon since the early ’90s,” says Parisot.
“Ed has always talked about doing a third one.
I think that was about six years ago, seven years ago.
Obviously, we had to raise capital to do it.”
That proved difficult to do.
“The idea of doing middle-aged Bill and Ted was not something they had thought of.
I think it took a while for people to get their heads around that.”
Two words which helped change those minds?
“John” and “Wick.”
“I’m sure that helped us in terms of raising the money,” says Solomon.
“We get rejected right about the ‘now you may kiss the bride’ part of it.”
That was great news for us.”
Solomon found the EW reunion to be a surprisingly emotional experience.
“It was talkingaboutBill and Ted.
It was very meaningful to me, very moving.”
“He’s such a big liar,” says the filmmaker.
The two of them were fantastic.
They spent all of their time rehearsing together and they worked incredibly hard.
I thought they were hysterically funny.
Both Keanu and Alex are so committed and professional that we came in two-and-a-half days under schedule.
And they’re sweethearts on top of that.
They’re good guys.
So, no, right out of the gate, Alex was phenomenal."
Reeves hopes the film’s ultimately hopeful message will connect with fans of the original movies.
It’s such a positive kind of message.
And it feels like older people have started to communicate that to their kids.
That’s certainly something when we never expected and it’s certainly a wonderful gift to have."
“In a way, I think it’s better for now, honestly.
The climate is so poisonous and people are so cynical and people are so angry.
Maybe the message of the movie is actually more appropriate now.
Maybe in a way we’re lucky.
I don’t know.”
Anyone want to take a phonebooth back in time and tell him how muchmoreappropriate that message is now?
