‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ Was Never 78 Minutes Long — Why IMDB Thought It Was That Short

Bill & Ted Face the Music is 10 years in the making and nearly 30 years coming. We haven’t seen Bill S. Preston (Alex Winter) or Ted “Theodore” Logan (Keanu Reeves) on screen since 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. They are back in a new feature length movie, despite reports to the contrary.

For a few weeks, IMDB had listed the running time of Bill & Ted Face the Music as one hour and 78 minutes. The actual running time is closer to 92 minutes. Screenwriter Ed Solomon and Dean Parisot spoke with Showbiz Cheat Sheet and cleared up the mistake. Bill & Ted Face the Music is playing in select theaters and is available on VOD Aug. 28.

The plot of ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ involves 78 minutes

It seems Bill and Ted only get visits from the future when there’s a crisis. Rufus (George Carlin) had to prevent them from failing history and getting separated. Then De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) sent evil robot impersonators to kill them before the Battle of the Bands. Now Rufus’s daughter Kelly (Kristen Schaal) visits them with only 78 minutes before the end of the universe!

“It came from the fact that somehow in the press it said Bill and Ted have 78 minutes that transpire in real time to find the song,” Solomon said. “I think they thought that meant from the beginning of the movie. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.”

‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ director takes the blame

Parisot takes responsibility for the erroneous running time. In a Feb. interview with Empire, when the first trailer for Bill & Ted Face the Music came out, he described the plot to the magazine. Unfortunately, writers or database supervisors forgot to account for the parts of the movie that could occur before or after the 78 minutes.

“Yeah, that’s my fault,” Parisot said. “77 minutes and 25 seconds is all they have left before the destruction of all space and time. That’s what I said in that interview. I said they only have this amount of time before they have to [write the song]. It’s a ticking clock movie. So the whole movie takes place in that 77, 78 minutes. They misquoted it and said the whole movie was 78 minutes.”

Dean Parisot isn’t too upset about the erroneous running time 

78 minutes would be pretty short for a feature film. Maybe an animated movie could get away with it, but not live-action. Still, Parisot isn’t too upset about the 78 minutes being cited for some time. Besides, it’s all corrected now. When people pre-ordered the VOD release of Bill & Ted Face the Music, they were given the correct running time. 

“What can I say?” Parisot said. “Of all the mistakes, that’s a pretty small one.”