BILL & TED 3 GETS A DIRECTOR

Earlier this year we learned that there might be a Bill & Ted 3, and now it looks like that flick is getting closer to being a reality: Dean Parisot has been hired to direct the film, according to Vulture.

I don’t have a very strong opinion of Parisot as a director; he’s probably most famous for Galaxy Quest, which is actually a pretty fun movie, but it’s not like any of his work — which also includes the Jim Carrey flop Fun with Dick and Jane and a Drew Barrymore dramedy, Home Fries — but it’s not as though the dudes who directed the first two films, Stephen Herek (The Mighty Ducks) and Peter Hewitt (Garfield) were great auteurs, either, so “competent” may be all this franchise needs. And I do find this piece of info, also from Vulture, encouraging:

“Original Bill & Ted creators Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson… took the unusual step of writing their third Bill & Tedscript on spec in an attempt to ensure a take that would address where Mssrs. Ted Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq. are in their lives today as opposed to being a reboot or remake.”

In other words, while there is obviously a cashing-in element to reviving these characters, at least the cashing-in is being done by the people who created the whole damn thing in the first place.

Right now the project doesn’t even have a start date or a studio — Parisot is attached to direct Bruce Willis in Red 2 before he can do anything else, and the studio that owns the characters, MGM, is in shitty shape, and is apparently seeking a co-financier. But it does seem like the ball is a-rollin’ on this flick. More news and it becomes available.

-AR