MovieChat Forums > Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) Discussion > Imagine pitching this movie to studios

Imagine pitching this movie to studios


Two california high school flunkies are terrible at music and history. A man from the future arrives in a time traveling phone booth to help them pass a history report so they can go on to form a music band and make a brighter future for the world. The boys meet historic figures and introduce them to wa waterparks and the mall in a 1988 California.

What were those executives smoking?
The movie is great, but what a gamble.

reply

It was the 80s and studios were more willing to take chances on storylines. Now they either want everything to be a guaranteed moneymaker (popular franchises, remakes, sequels) or something controversial and edgy that they can get word of mouth over. There's little to no room for quirky and fun ideas among the big studios anymore.

reply

Simple--somebody saw how much money the back to the future movies were making---and wanted to make a really cheap/quick rip off of it

The reuniting your parents angle was already taken and so was repaiting time with a book you accidentally took. So they had to take what was left

So they had to use two doofus rockers who are about to flunk school--needing to travel through time with a magic phonebook and mystery man.

Saw it after a LONG hiatus while getting my teeth cleaned and the headache wasn't just from my crown having worn out The movie sucks.

Reeves should be grateful he learned how to act.

reply

Yeah. If you were to explain to somebody who hadn't seen them what The Bill And Ted films were about, you'd sound like a lunatic. Ha Ha.

I think as has been said elsewhere on this thread, in the 1980s Hollywood was more willing to take risks. Now with less people going to the cinema these days, and finding alternative ways to watch movies online, studios go more with what they already know. So sequels, remakes, rehashes, whatever. Once something is proven popular, they get jumped on and churned out more and more now than ever before. It's harder to find films that are original. Also, what with the immense amount of criticisms that movies can get online, for reasons justified and not so justified, I can see why risks are taken a lot less in mainstream movies now.

Also, as has been said, the popularity of Back To The Future can't have hurt.

reply