Bill & Ted Face the Music is a 2020 American science fiction comedy film directed by Dean Parisot and written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon.

[5] Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves, and William Sadler reprise their roles as Bill, Ted, and the Grim Reaper, respectively; while Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Jack Haven[a], Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Holland Taylor, Kid Cudi, Jillian Bell and Beck Bennett join the cast.

Kelly, the daughter of Bill and Ted's deceased time-travelling guide, Rufus, arrives to take them to the year 2720 in San Dimas, California.

Kelly travels back to the present to warn them, but instead meets their daughters, Billie and Thea, who decide to help make the song.

Using Kelly's time machine, Thea and Billie recruit musicians Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ling Lun and Grom, a prehistoric drummer.

Thea, Billie and their band return to the present to meet up with Kelly and a time-displaced Kid Cudi, but Dennis inadvertently kills them and sends them to Hell.

The elderly Bill and Ted give their younger selves a USB drive containing the fabled song by "Preston / Logan", stating that it must be performed at 7:17 p.m at "MP 46".

Bill and Ted realize that the song is only to be performed by them, not written by them, and that "Preston / Logan" on the USB drive actually refers to Thea and Billie.

George Carlin appears posthumously as a Rufus hologram through the use of repurposed archival footage from the first film, with Piotr Michael providing the character's voice.

[17] Musician "Weird Al" Yankovic, talk-show personality Guillermo Rodriguez and actor Nathan Head make cameos during the credits.

"[23][24] Even at this early stage, the concept for the third film had involved Bill & Ted having reached middle age and still yet to achieve the prophesied music that brings world peace.

According to Matheson, the original films were considered "cult-y" by the studios, and wanted significant changes to the ideas that they had established,[22] or even a reboot of the series.

Two outside media investors, David Haring and Patrick Dugan, came in to provide the financial backing for the film,[22] and by the end of September 2014, more rigorous script reworking had begun while efforts were made to find a studio.

Instead, Winter attributed the continued pressure from fans over social media to influence Hollywood that came with news that the film had means of going forward.

[40] The producers decided to not repeat the anti-gay slurs used by the characters in previous Bill & Ted movies—a decision that was praised by both Winter and Reeves.

Other casting announcements include recasts of characters from previous films, with Erinn Hayes as Elizabeth, Jayma Mays as Joanna, and Beck Bennett as Deacon, Ted's younger brother.

[2] Solomon, Matheson, and Parisot ran through some of the most influencing musicians and centered on Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, played in the film by DazMann Still, Jeremiah Craft, and Daniel Dorr, respectively.

[52] There had been plans to have the older Bill & Ted travel back to the Circle K scene from the first film to ask Rufus for advice, for which they would have used a combination of practical set reconstruction and computer-generated imagery to recreate the younger versions of Bill, Ted, and Rufus, but were limited by budget and time to make this work, and scrapped this approach.

[58] Rather than focus on the hair metal of the original films, music director Jonathan Leahy involved groups such as Weezer, Mastodon and Lamb of God, who he believed represented the current state of electric guitar.

[59] As Tosin Abasi was also serving as the "air shredder" for Bill & Ted, Leahy brought in his band, Animals as Leaders, to play on the soundtrack version of the world-saving song.

[61] During a performance in August 2019, Kid Cudi announced that the soundtrack for the film features a remix of his 2010 song "Erase Me" done by Steve Aoki.

[62] Winter stated in a February 2020 interview that they had completed a "fantastic first cut" but were still working on visual effects and music, along with additional filming such as with Kid Cudi a few days prior.

[64] A new poster and a trailer was released on June 9, 2020,[65] unofficially referred to by fans as "Bill & Ted Day" as the date's digits 6 and 9 make up the duo's favorite number 69 from the first film.

[75] In its second weekend the film made $765,000 from theaters and remained in either first or second place on every VOD platform, including Amazon Prime, Vudu, iTunes, FandangoNow, and Google Play.

The site's critical consensus reads "As wholesomely goofy as its heroes, Bill and Ted Face the Music is a rare long-belated sequel that largely recaptures the franchise's original charm.

[79] Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote "It zips right along, it makes you smile and chortle, it's a surprisingly sweet-spirited love story... and it's a better tribute to the one-world utopian power of classic rock than Yesterday was.

[82] Shortly before the release of Face the Music, Winter and Reeves discussed the possibility of a fourth Bill & Ted film, the latter telling Rachel Smith of Entertainment Tonight that it would be "up to the fans.

"[83][84] When asked in an interview with DiscussingFilm in August 2020 if the characters of Thea and Billie could result in a sequel or spin-off film, writer Ed Solomon stated, "It wasn't when we were first writing it, but as we saw Brigette and Samara inhabit these roles, I thought for sure if there was interest and people wanted to carry this forward, the Bill & Ted spirit, I would absolutely let those characters carry it forward.