Coming soon: “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure 3″?

Winter wasn’t able to divulge much about what “Bill & Ted 3” will focus on, though he emphasized that the movie won’t be “cynical.”

“The essence of what we’ve always wanted to do is to make a ‘Bill & Ted’ movie,” he said. “We don’t want to make a cynical ‘here’s Bill and Ted — you guys are our kids, now YOU guys go be Bill and Ted and the franchise can live for another 25 years!’ It’s not that. It’s a straight up, what’s the funniest and most surprising take on where Bill and Ted would be right now if we stopped back in on them? That’s what we’re doing.”

One of the biggest obstacles facing the project, according to Winter, is figuring out how to deal with the absence of the late George Carlin, who famously played the time-traveling Rufus.

“We’re working our way through it right now,” said Winter. “It’s really complicated. He was such a big part of the spirit of the originals, and we’ve been trying to be clever about making a new one that can handle the Carlin issue. It’s actually stopped us in the past — why do it without Rufus? We’ve been delicate about moving around him.”