It ’s been a stinking yr , to put it gently , but one bright beacon has been the hope ofBill & Ted confront the Music , the third escapade featuring the time - traveling dudes played by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter . Like the other twoBill & Ted films , it ’s co - written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon , and io9 recently got a opportunity to verbalize with Matheson about bring the duo back .
“ It ’s a really sturdy here and now in the world , for a variety of reasons . There ’s a lot of people who are upset and my hope , our hope , is that Bill and Ted will feel expert to people , ” Matheson ( who also co - wroteA Goofy Movie ) secern io9 . “ Bill & Ted is , to some degree , about being genial to each other and helping each other , and at the risk of sounding really corny , it ’s about making love . ”
https://gizmodo.com/everything-we-think-you-should-know-before-bill-ted-1844827777
Death (William Sadler) has a word with his old pals Ted (Keanu Reeves) and Bill (Alex Winter) in Bill & Ted Face the Music.Photo: Orion Pictures
As it happens , Matheson is also an writer of several impertinent books on faith — an interest that was in reality sparked by his experiences filming the first Bill & Ted movie — including a make - new one title The Buddha ’s Story . With so many undertaking about to cut down , it seemed like just the bit to speak to Matheson about why the Buddha is advanced for comedic skewering — as well as , of trend , Bill and Ted ’s tenacious journeying back to the large screen . What follow is an edited and condense rendering of io9 ’s interview .
Cheryl Eddy , io9 : Your book have a reasonably specific recess — humourous , first - person takes on religious themes . What was the initial intake for writing from God ’s POV for The Story of God and The Trouble With God , and what made you want to shift to Buddha next ?
Chris Matheson : I was n’t really invoke spiritual . I did n’t have any freehanded bone to foot . I was n’t , like , harmed by it as a kid or anything . I had really no exposure to it at all . It was in reality — part of the filming of Bill & Ted ’s Excellent Adventure take piazza in Italy , and there ’s a mass of , you cognize , beautiful Catholic Churches there . I literally had n’t set infantry in church until that point , until I walked into this Christian church , I think it was in Naples and I just thought , “ Holy shit ! This is so interesting ! This is just unbelievably weird and complex and dull with meaning ! ” So I got very interested at that head and I started record the stuff , and I do n’t think it really made that much gumption to me because I did n’t have much of a earthing in it .
Image: Pitchstone Publishing
Then I revisit the Bible specifically when I was in my XL , and it just strike me : this is uproarious ! This guy , this God case , is the most insane , ludicrous madman anyone ’s ever written ! If you just kind of take the book at face value , like “ every word in it is reliable , ” then the theatrical role that egress is , to me , insanely funny , so I delight playing with him for a few years . I terminate up following him through the Koran and the Book of Mormon because I remember he was such a funny character . He just keeps popping up , you know ?
Then I was done , and I thought , perchance I ’m gon na look at the Eastern religions now , because I did n’t live much about them at all — and Buddhism of course of action has this repute for being the “ cool ” one , right ? Buddhism ’s like , you may be sort of pelvic arch , or be an rational , and be a Buddhist . I ’d met a few American Buddhists that I was n’t knocked out by . I thought they were kind of self-satisfied . So that sort of predispose me in a sure direction , I gauge .
Anyway , I started reading their poppycock , and they do n’t have one sacred textual matter like the Bible or the Koran or the Book of Mormon . They have a bunch . So I kind of immersed myself for about a year reading all of these news report about the life of the Buddha , and all of the belief system involve . About halfway through , I thought , “ Yeah … this has it coming , too . ” They ’ve gotten a offer . And it ’s not what people think it is . It ’s really not . I finish up think it was every bit as dumb , and despicable , and mean - bouncy as the Western religious belief . And also really , really fraudulent . Super fraudulent ! Because it ’s seemingly about no self , but it ’s all about ego . The whole thing is about this hombre ’s self-importance .
io9 : Has anyone ever draw upset with you , or taken offence , or just not understood your intentions with these books ?
Matheson : I ’m sure they have . I ’m sure they have . I do n’t really do societal spiritualist , so I do n’t lie with . Ah , believably . I ’ve learn reviews on Amazon that were pretty nasty , like the predictable matter of how I ’m going to combust in hell and be punished forever . Books like these are go away to be kind of self - selecting , you know , in term of who ’s survive to take them . There ’s not going to be a hatful of Evangelical Christians that are gon na read them . I do n’t imagine a lot of Buddhists will interpret this one . I could be untimely . I ’d do it to be ill-timed ! But , I recall if I was on societal medium there ’s be more [ ire direct at me ] , but I ’m not .
io9 : The Bill & Ted motion-picture show are n’t overtly religious , of trend , but there are certain constituent — like the character travel to Heaven and Hell in the second motion picture . Were those level points a musing of your own interests ?
Matheson : I imagine it must have been because they could have gone anywhere , right ? It ’s not the story the studio apartment wanted , that ’s for sure ! They want us to send them on an English lit composition , where they ’d just kind of do the same matter except in a different class . We did n’t want to do that . That did n’t seem rummy or interesting to us . And the idea of them dying and dealing with Heaven and Hell and God and Satan , as they literally do , yeah I think that must have somehow been on my mind . It certainly seemed a snatch comedic .
https://gizmodo.com/the-original-script-pages-for-bill-teds-excellent-adv-1822976053
io9 : What was the initial spark that put the third Bill & Ted movie in apparent movement , and why do you think 2020 is the veracious here and now for its release ?
Matheson : I suppose there was very little interest on the part of Alex andKeanufor a long time , and it matt-up like Ed and I were n’t really even endeavor to do much of anything . Between whenBogus Journeycame out in ‘ 91 , and until 2008 , really nothing happened . But I think in 2008 Ed and I must have had a couple of idea . A couple of notions , anyway . So we got together for dinner with Alex and Keanu and we float some of these approximation and said , “ Would you guys have any stake in pursuing this at all ? ” And they were kind of open to it .
They care the start degree : that thing that was suppose to happen , of [ Bill and Ted ] save the world , it has n’t worked out . So here they are , 50 years old , and it has n’t happened , and what that ’s been like for them ? How has that land ? What has that done to their internal lives?What has that done to their marriages , their finances , what is that like to live with all that press ? And I think they found that interesting .
And then we just needed to get sort of the story , the plot , that would drive that . At a certain point , Ed and I bumped into the melodic theme of A Christmas Carol and It ’s a rattling life-time , meaning visiting your own living . As I ’m certain you know , presumptively you ’ve seen the lagger , basically , it ’s that they go into the future and keep interact with different version of themselves . And they like that , they thought it was funny , so around 2010 they read , “ Yeah , you guys should write that ! ”
So we wrote it on spec , intend we did n’t get paid for it . And even beyond that , we did n’t even own it . MGM possess the property , so it was really kind of a foolish thing to do in a elbow room , because we did n’t even own what we were compose and at any point they could have done whatever they want . So we put it out in the world in 2011 , and it was sort of a reverberating thud . Nobody was really interested — which surprise us because we were excited , and we felt like what we had was pretty dear . To their credit , MGM said “ you may take it other position , ” so we did , and no place else wanted to do it either . So we were sort of dead in the piss in 2014 , somewhere around there . There was just not a lot of interest . Then , I thinkJohn Wickprobably was the game - changer because it started await different to hoi polloi . In 2016 , we kind of had a muckle with the studio — we almost got there , but it did n’t happen . In 2018 , we had a real deal with this studio Hammerstone , in 2019 we made it , and now we ’re put it out .
I go for it is the right moment for it . I think it ’s certainly a good moment for it . It ’s a really rugged moment in the world , for a variety of reasons . There ’s a lot of people who are broken and my hope , our Leslie Townes Hope , is that Bill and Ted will find good to people . Bill & Ted is , to some academic degree , about being kind to each other and helping each other , and at the peril of sounding really corny , it ’s about dearest . And hopefully , as the producer Scott Kroopf said , “ It ’s kind of a finger - unspoiled flick at a kind of finger - bad fourth dimension . ”
https://gizmodo.com/one-of-the-most-memorable-bill-ted-s-bogus-journey-ch-1824210866
io9 : I ’ve always wonder what coming you cat took to mapping outall the time travelin the movies .
Matheson : Not very strictly , actually . My dada [ Richard Matheson ] was a science fiction author — he wrote a time travel story called Somewhere in Time . So I kind of grow up around these concepts a minuscule bit ; peradventure I got some of it through osmosis or something . But I do n’t really mean of myself as being a skill fabrication writer . Ed might be a bit more so , but I do n’t think he think of himself as a scientific discipline fable author either . We just kind of seek to follow the character and tried to specifically go to the things that we think were funny , and then hear to number up with the simplest , most semi - plausible account for that we could .
And , then we just did n’t interest about it very much — all the conundrum of time , there ’s so many , it ’s bottomless basically . We just did n’t even really recollect about them . That ’s a real cony hole that you may get caught in , and I do n’t think that ’s how either one of us think . So we just tried to make it kind of simple , ridiculous , and playful . Playful , I guess , is what we were going for .
Chris Matheson ’s The Buddha ’s tarradiddle is out August 31;Bill & Ted Face the Music is out August 28 .
https://gizmodo.com/the-band-reunites-in-bill-ted-face-the-musics-excelle-1844507156
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