The Third Bill And Ted Movie Has A Title

The oft-discussed, long-in-the-making, elusive third Bill and Ted movie is inching closer to reality, with lead star Keanu Reeves publicly releasing the title of the upcoming film for the first time ever, according to Indiewire.

Speaking at a New York Comic-Con panel for his new sci-fi thriller movie Replicas, the 53-year-old actor and director said that the third film in the series will be called Bill and Ted Face the Music—which is actually quite clever, considering the ultimate destiny of the two hard rockers.

According to Reeves, the movie will center around middle-aged versions of Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Reeves), who have grown up to lead peaceful, mundane family lives following their youthful adventures through time, space, and the afterlife. There's only one problem. Our heroes were prophesied to write the music that united the world, bringing about utopia on Earth and teaching humanity to be excellent to each other and, in true slacker fashion, they've just kept putting if off.

"The future comes back and says if you don't write the song by this certain time, the universe is going to unravel, and history and everything is going to change and dinosaurs are gonna walk the Earth," Reeves said, discussing the plot of the third picture. 

If the two don't manage to reunite and bring the future to fruition, well, disaster's going to strike. "Jesus is playing baseball!" Reeves exclaimed, as an example of the sorts of wrongness their failure to save the world will bring. "All sorts of weird things start unraveling, and wormholes are twisting. We have to kind of bring order back, and it's connected into bringing our families together by writing a song."

According to Reeves, he, Winter, and the producers for the third movie have a script they're happy with, and are just working on getting the resources raised to get the movie made with a firm release date. "We're trying," Reeves said.

The big gap between the present and the last movie, 1991's Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, will be a feature of the new sequel rather than a drawback. "It's a cautionary tale," Reeves said of the nature of the movie. "They're supposed to save the world. But when we see them, they haven't saved the world, and they're married and have kids. And they're playing to nobody. But they have to write the song... and face the music!" 

He added, "Hopefully we'll make it before I'm 60."

There was a time when the window for a Bill and Ted threequel seemed pretty firmly closed, but now that pop culture is well and firmly into the realm of late-'80s and early-'90s nostalgia, there's definitely the right kind of vibe in the air for the Wyld Stallyns to come back and ride again. 

As things stand, with Reeves and Winter having pursued this project so tenaciously over the years, it's looking more and more likely that the movie really will happen—even if we do end up having to wait until Reeves and Winter are in their 60s to see it. If only George Carlin were still around to bring it all full circle.