Don’t look so shocked, dudes – A sequel to Bill and Ted 3 is something we’ve been hearing about since at least

Vulture hears exclusively that a long-thought-impossible third Bill & Ted film is coalescing — and yes, both Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are attached to star.

Original Bill & Ted creators Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson have also attached Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) to direct their script. Unlike so many recent studio remakes, which have simply recycled old material for a new generation, Solomon and Matheson took the unusual step of writing their third Bill & Ted script on spec in an attempt to ensure a take that would address where Mssrs. Ted Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq. are in their lives today as opposed to being a reboot or remake. Insiders tell Vulture the hope is to make a mid-priced studio comedy like Hot Tub Time-Machine.

So, like… Phone Booth Time Machine?

Where the third film might land is still not clear: MGM Pictures still owns the rights to Bill & Ted, but we hear that this new package is currently being shopped to other studios to co-finance it. But even if Bill & Ted 3 does get set up at a studio, it would need to wait until Parisot finishes directing the sequel to Lionsgate’s 2010 film RED, which starts shooting this spring. [Vulture]

If studios are making Alf and $250 million board game movies, I can’t imagine they’d pass up an opportunity to make a sequel where the name recognition actually does mean something. Matthew Broderick made a Ferris Bueller Super Bowl commercial and everyone crapped their pants. There was so stupidly happy to remember something from childhood that it didn’t even matter that it was a goddamn minivan commercial. Anyway, here’s what Keanu told MTV last year about the possible plot:

…the plot ties directly into the ending of “Bogus Journey,” when Bill and Ted’s Wyld Stallyns became the best band in the universe.
“When we last got together, part of it was that Bill and Ted were supposed to have written the song that saved the world, and it hasn’t happened,” he said. “So they’ve now become kind of possessed by trying to do that. Then there’s an element of time and they have to go back. [via MTV News]

Well sure, it’s hard to write a song that saves the world when there’s no music industry. They’ll probably have to take the time machine back to the Napster days. Alex Winter will jump out and be like, “Hey, kid! Stop all the downloadin’!” Then Keanu will show everyone his kung fu, and Teddy Roosevelt will charge in on a bull moose to keep Michael Jackson from molesting Corey Feldman. That way Corey Haim never starts taking drugs to forget, never stops rocking on the keyboards, and never ODs, which actually sets up Matheson and Solomon’s next project, a License to Drive sequel. That’s right, I see them writing themselves into the franchise, Adaptation-style. There’s also big BASE-jumping sequence that could be kind of expensive, but hey, I’m just spitballin’ here.

[Bill & Ted's Excellent Inception via]