You wait two decades for Bill & Ted to make it back to the big screen, then multiple versions come along at once. Star Alex Winter, aka Bill S Preston Esq, has revealed that the long-awaited third instalment in the much-loved film series will feature at least two different takes on the hard rock-loving, time-travelling bodacious dudes.



Rumours of a followup to 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey have abounded since 2010, with both Winter and co-star Keanu Reeves (aka Ted “Theodore” Logan) declaring their interest. Now Winter, 49, has told Yahoo that the new script features several different versions of 40-something Bill & Ted.



“It’s all about Bill and Ted grown up, or not grown up. It’s really sweet and really fucking funny,” said the actor and director. “But it’s a Bill & Ted movie, that’s what it is. It’s for the fans of Bill & Ted. It fits very neatly in the [series]. It’s not going to feel like a reboot. The conceit is really funny: what if you’re middle-aged, haven’t really grown up and you’re supposed to have saved the world and maybe, just maybe, you kinda haven’t?”



Two become many … Bill and Ted in the first film Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/ORION

He added: “There’s many versions of ourselves in this movie. [It’s] answering the question: ‘What happened to these guys?’ They’re supposed to have done all this stuff, they weren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree, what happened 20 years later? To answer that question in a comedic way felt rich with possibility.”



Reeves, 50, previously said the new film would examine how Bill & Ted “were supposed to have written the song that saved the world, and it hasn’t happened”. He added: “So they’ve now become kind of possessed by trying to do that. Then there’s an element of time and they have to go back.”



Fans could be forgiven for wondering why the movie has taken quite so long to get here, especially since Reeves said in 2011 that “the writers are six weeks away from a draft”. Winter revealed: “The thing we had going against us is that word got out. That was kind of a bummer. It just takes a long time to put a movie together. Now we’re having to build this thing in public, which is fine. I just feel bad [the fans] have to get dragged through this long, boring, protracted process.”





One more photo of the awesome duo, in preparation for the plethora to come. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/ORION



He added: “The script’s been finished for a while, but comedy is so specific. We’re in that world where producers are on, financiers are on and we’re just working and reworking the script.”

• Hadley Freeman talks 25 years of Bill & Ted with Alex Winter