Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) on Netflix
PG-1320201h 31mAdventureComedyMusicSci-Fi
Middle-aged Bill S. Preston, Esq and Ted Logan still have not written the song meant to unite the world. A visitor from the future says reality itself will collapse without it.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb5.9/1057,329 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes82%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bill S. Preston, Esq and Ted Logan have reached middle age without producing the song that is supposed to bring the world together. Their marriages are strained and their careers have faded, and time and space have started to break down. Kelly, the daughter of Rufus, the duo's late time-traveling guide, arrives and brings them 700 years ahead to San Dimas, California. Her mother, the Great Leader, explains that their song is still missing and that an event called the Unraveling has begun; if the song is not ready by 7:17 that evening, reality is doomed. Kelly hands them her father's pocket watch to track the time in San Dimas. With so little time left, Bill and Ted climb into their old phone booth and set out to take the song from their own future selves.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to co-writer Chris Matheson, the film's prospects changed after Keanu Reeves starred in John Wick in 2014: it renewed a career that had been lackluster with several flops, drawing attention to projects he was attached to, including the Bill & Ted script.
- A planned scene in which the older Bill and Ted travel back to the Circle K from the first film to ask Rufus for advice was scrapped; practical set reconstruction and CGI to recreate younger Bill, Ted and Rufus were ruled out over budget and time.
- The production secured the rights to use Jimi Hendrix's and Louis Armstrong's likenesses for the film, but was forbidden to use them in the film's advertising and could not use any of their musical works.
- There were no plans to recast Rufus, played by George Carlin, who died in 2008; Carlin appears posthumously as a holographic tour guide using archival footage from the first film, and Kristen Schaal's character Kelly is named after Carlin's real daughter, Kelly Carlin.
- Bonita Unified School District, which serves San Dimas and La Verne and contains the real San Dimas High School, let the production film at the school, though most of the San Dimas filming for the first film was done at a school in Arizona.
- Rather than the hair metal of the originals, music director Jonathan Leahy brought in Weezer, Mastodon and Lamb of God, groups he felt represented today's electric guitar; Lamb of God's "The Death of Us" plays in the future prison scene.
- The producers decided not to repeat the anti-gay slurs used by the characters in the earlier Bill & Ted films, a decision praised by both Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves.
