"Ghostbusters 3" might be endlessly rattling around development hell (and with Bill Murray definitely not involved, really, who cares?), but another long-belated sequel to a 1980s comedy/sci-fi classic seems to be having a lot more luck. In the twenty years since the characters were last onscreen, there's been increasing talk of a third "Bill & Ted" movie, another entry in the franchise following the two titular less-than-bright Californians, played by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, who've traveled through time in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and fought off Death and met God in "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey". But it's one of those projects that, honestly, we never really thought we'd see come to pass.
That said, Keanu Reeves did say last year that original writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon were working on a script, and indeed, as of this morning it looks like the film is closer than ever to production, with the script for "Bill & Ted 3" now complete, and Vulture reporting that Dean Parisot, the director of the excellent "Galaxy Quest," is now attached to helm the project.
Written on spec by Matheson and Solomon (the latter of whom went on to pen "Men In Black" and "Charlie's Angels," among others), the script will pick up with Bill & Ted in their forties, rather than rebooting or recasting, with both Reeves and Winter (who was last seen on screen in a 2007 episode of "Bones," having mostly focused on directing in recent years) attached to star. MGM, who were behind the original films, still hold the rights, but the package put together at present is intended to bring in other studios to help co-finance the picture.
We're a little mixed about the idea of a threequel this many years on, but as long as the film's closer to the enjoyable "Excellent Adventure" than the sloppy, if occasionaly inspired "Bogus Journey," then we won't be complaining too much. And Parisot (having worked mainly in TV lately and about to return to feature directing for the Bruce Willis/Helen Mirren sequel "Red 2") seems like a good choice to hire, if he can recapture the magic of "Galaxy Quest." We'll always feel like there'll be a hole where George Carlin (who co-starred in the first two, and passed away in 2008) should be, but if the film does move forward, we'll be interested to see how it turns out.