Bill & Ted 3 Cut A Scene Where They Meet Their Younger Selves At Circle K

Ed Solomon, the co-writer of Bill & Ted Face The Music, says the filmmakers cut a scene where the pair traveled back in time to meet themselves at Circle K. The movie, which released in theaters and on VOD last Friday, is the third in the franchise and the first to be made in almost 30 years. The first movie, written by Solomon along with co-writer Chris Matheson, featured the titular heroes traveling through time in a phone booth after a mysterious “dude” called Rufus (George Carlin) warns them they have to pass their upcoming history report or they’ll alter the course of humanity’s future.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was a cult hit upon its release in 1989, and the sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, was released two years later. That film, which was a strange parody of Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal, took Bill and Ted (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) on a trip through hell after their evil robot twins kill them. The third sequel finds the now middle-aged pair, as well as their daughters, setting out on a quest to steal the perfect song from their future selves, after being told reality will collapse in on itself if they don’t write it within 78 minutes.

Now, Solomon has revealed that one of the scenes they had to cut from the film involved Bill and Ted traveling back in time to visit their younger selves at the Circle K, during the scene from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, where they first encounter Rufus. Solomon revealed the information in a Reddit AMA, where he added that it was cut because the CGI to recreate the late Carlin’s Rufus was too expensive and would have also not done the character justice.

Solomon also revealed that one of their original ideas was to open the movie with a VH1-style “Where are they now?” segment to catch audiences up on what happened to The Wyld Stallyns in the past 30 years. He also mentions a scene where they visit their 9-year-old selves and accidentally torture them. The reason the latter scene was cut is self-evident (who wants to see children being tortured in a movie?), but Solomon doesn’t mention why the VH1 segment was cut.

While the decision to not try and create a CGI version of Carlin as Rufus has to be respected, it does mean the filmmakers missed an excellent opportunity to revisit the literal site of their first triumph in the final film in the franchise. It would have been hilarious to see middle-aged Bill and Ted interact with their goofy younger selves, and perhaps hint at some facts about the future, in a recreation of the first film’s encounter when the pair talk to themselves two hours in the future. Unfortunately, due to the death of Carlin in 2008, the scene would never be able to be made, not that Bill & Ted Face The Music suffers too much from its absence.