Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey: Original Ending Revealed

There are few sequels of the past 30 years or so we love quite as much as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, a legitimately excellent and very funny follow-up to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

The movie was directed by Peter Hewitt, taking over from Excellent Adventure’s Stephen Herek. And he’s been chatting with Bloody Disgusting, along with William Sadler (who, of course, played the Grim Reaper) about the movie. In particular, the ending of the film, which saw Bill & Ted save the world, sing God Gave Rock & Roll To You, and leave us with a montage of newspaper and magazine headlines to fill in the rest of the story.

However, the original title of the film was Bill & Ted Go To Hell, and there’s long been chatter of a different ending to the movie, where the creatures from Hell come to Earth to attack Bill and Ted. Peter Hewitt not only confirmed this was the original plan, but added “it wasn’t a scene, it was the entire ending of the movie. It was a different ending.”

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He explained that “Evil Bill and Ted open their chests and out come these strange cylinders that start to bubble and turn into something. Then, Bill and Ted arrive at the auditorium, the Battle of the Bands, and then their worst fears incarnate arrive. So, a giant Easter bunny arrives and attacks them, granny arrives, Colonel Oats attacks them, and then I can’t remember!”

That said, the film still would have seen Bill and Ted get back in time for the Battle of the Bands, but the darker ending changed. Why? Back to Peter Hewitt…

“We tested it, ’cause the film was shot really quickly and then came out a couple of months later; suddenly it was like we’re six weeks from opening and needed a new ending. So, the whole ending of Bill and Ted building ‘good’ robots to defeat the ‘dad’ robots, that was a new ending; and all the concert stuff was new. Death was in it, but by that time we were finding anything and everything for [William Sadler] to do.”

Rightly so, too. And proof that late reshoots don’t always spell disaster. In good news too, a Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is getting a Blu-ray release at the end of the month.

Be excellent to each other.