The long-mooted third Bill and Ted movie is set to go into production this year with a projected release date of summer 2020, it has been announced.

Actors Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves – aka William “Bill” S Preston Esq and Theodore “Ted” Logan – broke the news in a short promotional video filmed at the Hollywood Bowl. Thanking “you the fans”, the pair said the title of the new film would be Bill & Ted Face the Music, and would “hopefully” shoot in the summer.

At the same time, producers Orion Pictures released a plot synopsis, which confimed that the film will pick the characters up as middle-aged men. It states: “Yet to fulfil their rock and roll destiny, the now middle-aged best friends set out on a new adventure, when a visitor from the future warns them that only their song can save life as we know it and bring harmony to the universe. Along the way, they will be helped by their families, old friends and a few music legends.”

As previously indicated, the film is due to be directed by Galaxy Quest’s Dean Parisot, with a screenplay from Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the writing team behind the first two Bill and Ted movies. A note on Orion Pictures’ YouTube channel has named the release date as 21 August 2020.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey were released in 1989 and 1991 respectively and proved unexpectedly popular. The first film saw them travel through time to bring significant figures back to present day California to help them pass their school history report, while the second saw them famously take on Death at Battleships, parodying Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Winter in particular has been pitching a third film for years, but it has never fully solidified, despite an announcement being made in May 2018 at the Cannes film festival. Reeves has also showed enthusiasm for the project, alongside a career headlining a string of successful blockbusters. In 2013 he told NBC’s Today show: “I’m open to the idea of that … I think it’s pretty surreal, playing Bill & Ted at 50. But we have a good story in that. You can see the life and joy in those characters, and I think the world can always use some life and joy.”