‘Bill & Ted Face The Music’ Director On The Return Of Wyld Stallyns

“Foolishly, I wasn’t nervous enough,” joked director Dean Parisot as he talked about taking on the latest entry in the beloved Bill & Ted franchise. “I think it’s daunting because anything that’s part of a series has something that comes along with it, something that existed before.”

The original movie, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, landed in theaters in 1991. In 1991, the sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, arrived and now, almost three decades later, audiences get a third movie, Bill & Ted Face the Music. 

“Sure, it’s fun to invent something from new cloth, but on the other side of it, I liked all these people a lot, and I liked these characters a lot. Also, it was so far past when the last movie came out that it is almost like you are doing a different job in a weird sense,” he mused. “This is a story about two middle-aged characters, their significant others and their children. The challenge was to retain the integrity of Bill and Ted’s characters and tell the story of them where they are now. I mean, ask any middle-aged person how different their life was almost 30 years ago. Hopefully, we achieved what we set out to do.”

It’s no secret that the journey to make Bill & Ted Face the Music a reality has been a long and winding one with many thinking it might never happen.

“I think it was simply a case of no-one giving up,” declared Parisot. “Scott Kroopf, who also produced the first two movies, was instrumental in continuing to push this forward along with Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, who wrote it, and Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, as well as me to a certain extent. We just kept going.”

“I don’t know why. I think it was probably because thematically, this movie is a positive experience and is also still absurd enough but not in a corny way. I think all we all wanted to see those characters again, somehow.”

He added, “We eventually made it for just a little bit more than zero dollars in terms of budget. It was a long path to this moment. We were trying to do the math of it all, and I think I got involved about seven years ago or maybe longer. It got set up and then fell apart and set up again, and then it fell apart again, and so on.”

A request for confirmation of the film’s budget was declined. However, the figure of $25 million has been reported.

“Honestly, it’s hard to make a theatrical movie that is a comedy these days,” Parisot said. “For some reason, this was very hard to set up. I also think because Ed wrote it on spec, it was us trying to do it, and it was hard to do. We did it, though.”

Is Bill and Ted facing the music the end of the road for the franchise, or could it live on beyond the third film with more movies or a move to TV?

“I don’t think we talked about it as being a launchpad for something more, but now everyone is now starting to bring it up,” explained Parisot. “I think part of that is the success of Samara Weaving and Bridgette Lundy Paine, who are quite brilliant at creating characters who are clearly the daughters of Bill and Ted but are also their own characters. I think they’d be fun in anything if that ends up happening. I don’t want to speak for Ed, but it did seem like this was the end of it. However, you never know.”

“It helps that this was a fun experience for everyone. As soon as we started shooting, everybody was laughing. I mean, literally, we would enjoy the hell out of ourselves. I shouldn’t say that because movies are difficult, but it was difficult because of budget restrictions, not because it wasn’t fun. Everybody who was there wanted to be there, and then to enjoy the crap out of it. So, for me, this movie is worth the experience at every level.”

The director added, “When we’re making it, we were focused on trying to make the movie. I’m thinking about entertaining myself, first of all. I don’t think about the audience as much as you might expect.”

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey grossed $40.5 million and $38 million at the box office, respectively. While Bill & Ted Face the Music will receive a theatrical release, limited due to the number of theaters that remain closed due to the pandemic, the movie simultaneously debuts on VOD.

“I honestly think they did a wonderful job,” Parisot enthused as he discussed the distributor’s handling of the film’s release. “I think they made all the right decisions as they adapted to what the situation continues to be. It may end up that it gets a bigger audience on VOD than it would have been in theaters, for sure.”

“Obviously, the theatrical experience, for comedy especially, is my favorite thing, to have a room full of people laughing together is something that you hope for, so it’s a shame that we don’t have theaters. We’ll find out the results soon enough, I’m sure.”

Bill & Ted Face the Music lands in theaters and on VOD on Friday, August 28, 2020.