While discussing his role in the upcoming thriller Grand Piano, Winter offered up some details (to Yahoo Movies) about the status of the long-rumored third installment of the franchise that cast him and Keanu Reeves as time-traveling, hard-rocking heroes Bill S. Preston and Ted “Theodore” Logan, respectively. With more than 20 years elapsing since theaters welcomed the first sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, there’s a lot of ground to cover — and Winter explained where the third film would pick up in the lives of its titular heroes.
“[Bill & Ted] will be 40-something and it’s all about Bill and Ted grown up, or not grown up,” explained Winter. “It’s really sweet and really f—-ing funny.”
Given all of the reboots and remakes of fan-favorite franchises that seem to be happening lately, Winter was quick to dismiss the idea of the third Bill & Ted adventure as a reboot.
“It’s a Bill & Ted movie, that’s what it is,” he said. “It’s for the fans of Bill & Ted. It fits very neatly in the [series]. It’s not going to feel like a reboot. The conceit is really funny: What 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?”
Winter also confirmed that his co-star Reeves would definitely return for the third film, and that the pair have been discussing a return to the roles off and on for the last two decades.
“Me and Keanu and [original writers] Chris [Matheson] and Ed [Solomon] are all very close and have remained close over the years,” explained Winter. “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,” he added. “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.”
Winter stopped short of discussing any timeline for the project, adding that the public status of the film’s progress has occasionally worked against it, leading some fans to think it was farther along than it was at points. Still, it seems that the “totally metal” duo will indeed find their way back to the screen at some point down the road.
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