Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) on Netflix

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

• In the original spec script, Bill and Ted drove a borrowed van into Nazi Germany and brought Adolf Hitler back to present-day San Dimas; co-writer Ed Solomon said the approach became problematic and Hitler was switched out for Napoleon in the final script.
• The role of Rufus did not exist when filming began: director Stephen Herek wanted Eddie Van Halen but the low budget ruled him out, and the shortlist of rock-fitting actors included Ringo Starr, Roger Daltrey, Sean Connery and Charlie Sheen.
• Casting the leads took between 200 and 300 actors: Pauly Shore and Gary Riley were considered for Ted, while Matt Adler, River Phoenix, Donovan Leitch, Sean Penn and Brendan Fraser auditioned for Bill.
• Distributor DEG went bankrupt while the film was in post-production, so Stephen Herek shopped the rough cut around; an ecstatic reaction from a test audience of mall volunteers sparked a bidding war among companies for the title.
• The budget was too small to close the water parks, so everyone seen in the background of the "Waterloops" scenes, shot at Raging Waters and Golfland Sunsplash, was a paying customer there that day.
• For the "Circuits of Time" effects, several people had to stand inside the booth, which sat on a gimbal in front of a green screen; the prop failures led Keanu Reeves to call it "a death ride canoe from the worst carny ride you've ever been on".
• The first cut ran 2 hours and 25 minutes and opened with a choreographed air-guitar song-and-dance number; Alex Winter found stills of the deleted scene on an old hard drive in 2020 and posted them online.
• Bill and Ted's 1969 Chevrolet van was dropped for being too similar to the DeLorean in Back to the Future and replaced with a phone booth, which co-writer Chris Matheson said was not meant as a Doctor Who TARDIS reference.