It’s always magical when an actor is matched to their perfect character, forbidding the possibility of the audience imagining anyone else ever playing the part, and in that sense the original casting process for Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure struck pure gold twice. As the titular duo, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter established what are iconic roles, and the performances we’ve seen, both in the original and in the first sequel, Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey are ones that we will never forget.
One could say it was destiny that the two actors would play the goofy best buds – and in a way Bill And Ted co-creator Ed Solomon confirmed as much today during the Comic-Con @ Home panel for the upcoming Bill And Ted Face The Music.
Hosted by Kevin Smith, the panel started by digging into the history of the series and its origins back in the 1980s, which was delivered with fun fact that the characters were initially created by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson as personas they themselves took on before deciding that Bill And Ted could be the heroes of their own movie. Unfortunately, they lost a fair bit of control over the project as it started to head towards production, and, as Solomon described, this led to them standing in a McDonalds shortly before principal photography complaining about their vision being screwed with. Said the writer,
It was hard for us to imagine who would take the characters over, and we were not involved in the casting process or anything. We were in Arizona where the movie was about to shoot, and we were in line at a McDonald's and we were actually complaining to each other, like, 'God, I bet whoever they cast is never going to be able to do it the way we hoped' and all that.
Evidently it was during this conversation that Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson’s attention was caught by a couple of guys ahead of them, and they had a moment of inspiration that turned out to be something like a message from the universe. Solomon continued:
And then there are these two guys in front of us in line at McDonald's just goofing off and talking to each other, and Chris and I were like, 'Now those should be the people that play Bill and Ted.' And then we ended up on set for the first rehearsal and it was Alex and Keanu.
It’s certainly not an uncommon thing to hear writers be upset about their work not being treated properly in Hollywood (it’s actually so common that it’s an industry joke), but rarely do those stories have such remarkably happy endings. But it just seems to perfect for Bill And Ted, which is just a series beaming with endless positivity that is best summed up in the great Abraham Lincoln quote, “Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!”
We here at CinemaBlend couldn’t be more thrilled to see the return of Bill And Ted, and our wait for that triumphant arrival is almost over. Bill And Ted Face The Music, starring Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, William Sadler, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Kristen Schaal, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Holland Taylor, Kid Cudi, Jillian Bell, and more, will be hitting select theaters and premium VOD on September 1st. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for news, updates, and a whole lot more between now and then!
