Five Totally Triumphant Fun Facts About Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Featuring evil robot doppelgängers, board games with Death, and a trip to heaven and hell, the next installment in the Bill & Ted series may be labeled as a bogus journey, but despite what the critics may’ve said, we think it makes for a most excellent sequel! Originally titled Bill & Ted Go to Hell, which was later altered due to American’s general objection of the word ‘hell,” Bogus Journey takes the duo on more cheerfully wacky escapades. Weirder, more imaginative, and totally unhinged, Bogus Journey might just be more fun than the original, which may be a most unpopular opinion, but anything that references Ingmar Bergman is all right with us.
Without further ado, here’s some totally triumphant fun facts about Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey!
The film was almost about kidnapping literary characters.
Orion Pictures, who own the rights to the franchise, weren’t initially interested in the idea of Bill & Ted dying and going to hell; they wanted to see them taking trips through different famous works of literature in order to pass an English test. "The literature idea sounds different from time travel," Ed Solomon said, "but it ends up being the same thing: Bill and Ted go into historical settings and meet famous characters, except now the characters are fictional."
Knowing that Orion’s idea had no real mileage to it, Solomon and fellow co-creator (and co-screenwriter) Chris Matheson approached Alex Winters and Keanu Reeves. "We knew Alex and Keanu didn’t want to do the same thing over again, so we pitched our idea to them," recalled Matheson. “They really liked it and told Orion that’s the one they wanted to do.” With Winters and Reeves backing them, Solomon and Matheson were able to make the film they wanted.
It’s director Peter Hewitt’s feature film debut.
After the success of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, director Stephen Herek was approached to direct a sequel. He declined because he thought it was "almost a parody of a movie that was already a parody". British director Peter Hewitt was chosen to replace Hewek despite never having directed a full-length film before, beating out over 50 other directors for the opportunity.
"To this day I don’t know why," Hewitt admitted in a 1992 interview with Alan Jones. "I think I never imagined they’d consider me so I decided to say exactly what I thought about their script ideas: what I didn’t like and would want to change as much as what I wanted left in to build on. Perhaps they admired my honesty and the fact I wasn’t scared to speak my mind."
This, combined with his British background, likely contributed to the film’s much darker first cut. “You draw your own conclusions when I tell you the first Bogus Journey cut was far darker than it is now. That’s a definite British trait," Hewitt stated in the same interview with Jones. The humour was black comedy almost. The Evil Us’s were really evil! I went for it and had them running riot doing despicable things. But test screen audiences couldn’t take it. That approach turned them off Bill and Ted. My original cut would have played well in Britain. I’m to blame because I was so anxious to broaden the concept out. That’s why Joss Ackland plays De Nomolos like a Nazi and Death is a Czechoslovakian. Thanks to me those largely European elements found their way into the movie."
Creator Cameos!
Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, Bill & Ted creators and screenwriters, appear in both Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey. In Excellent Adventure, they’re in the ice cream scene as the “stupid” and “ugly” waiters. In Bogus Journey, they’re the only male New Agers attending Missy’s séance; Solomon’s in the glasses, Matheson in the white shirt.
Solomon and Matheson having more subliminal appearances in the film as well. During the séance, all the New Agers are chanting "Ed and Chris rule the world" backwards. Also, the “Nomolos” in the character name of the evil Chuck De Nomolos (played by Joss Ackland) is Solomon spelled backwards.
William Sadler had a blast making the film and is responsible for some of its best moments.
In an exclusive interview with The Hollywood News, William Sadler said: “I think I had more fun doing Bill and Ted than I’ve ever had making anything I’ve ever shot. It was, once I came up with the Czechoslovakian accent and had the funny make-up done, and the idea that he’s almost effeminate. He starts off as a scary dude and almost immediately it all unravels and he becomes this kind of insecure doofus who all he really wants is for them to like him. At the end it was so sweet. I also got to be creative, I wrote the Reaper Rap. I kept having ideas, like when he goes by—I said to Peter Hewitt the director, 'Wouldn’t it be great if he walks past somebody who’s smoking and says ‘See you real soon’ as he goes by, and the person who’s smoking goes ah and puts it out?’ Peter liked the idea and said bring the camera over here, that’s Peter Hewitt as the smoker. We didn’t have an actor to play it, the idea happened on the set, while we were shooting other stuff. Once I was in costume and character it was just easy to be silly, you know ‘what about my butt?’, ‘reaping burns a lot of calories’ (laughs) there were a lot of little things that I would say that ended up in the movie.”
Hewitt, along with many critics, believes that William Sadler’s portrayal of Death steals the Bogus Journey show. He said, "Once I conceptualized Death as a Bergmanesque cartoon, William threw himself into the role. He was unstoppable and came up with my favourite stuff in the picture.
An alternate ending included a Bill & Ted army.
The original ending for Bogus Journey would have been far more bonkers, but test audiences didn’t respond to it. In an interview with Alan Jones, Hewitt expanded on this: "Bill and Ted brought themselves back from the Future every minute for ten years so we could show whole armies of them. Then the concert audience pulled off masks to reveal they were Bills and Teds too! This concept was axed when it became clear the entire ending would have to be reshot because it didn’t gell and, anyway, preview audiences didn’t like it. We went back into the studio for ten days to shoot the new ending you see. That’s why it now relies heavily on the Time travel idea used briefly and effectively in the first picture.”
Don’t want the fun to stop?! Check out more most excellent Bill & Ted material below:
Five Totally Awesome Fun Facts About Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Drinking Game
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!