As if you needed another reason to plead for the long-gestured Bill & Ted sequel, it appears the Wyld Stallyns’ are going to be reuniting with their bass player, DEATH.

Demon Knight‘s William Sadler stole the show as the Grim Reaper in Peter Hewitt’s 1991 Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, losing to the duo in a series of challenges and eventually joining the band as their bassist. His scene-stealing “Reaper Rap” helped the duo win the Battle of the Bands and save the world from Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland).

In the next film, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Sadler could reprise his role, which was inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Franchise writer Ed Solomon tweeted out this bombshell after sharing more news on the third film:

Bill CRUSHED it as Death. And we laughed a lot writing him in BT3 – so let’s hope it’s something that happens

— Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon) February 18, 2018

Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) is attached to direct Bill & Ted Face the Music, which will see Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves play middle-aged versions of Bill and Ted, who are now family men rather than young aspiring musicians. However, the death of actor/comedian George Carlin in 2008 posed a problem when it came to the character of Bill and Ted’s mentor Rufus, explains Digital Spy, who also spoke to Solomon about the sequel.

“George Carlin is so deeply missed by all of us. There is a… not just an homage to him, it’s more than that. His absence is a part of the whole movie.”

The threequel will see the older Bill and Ted travel back in time, Solomon revealed, to interact with both their past selves and Rufus – using footage from 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Strange things will once more be afoot at the Circle K…

Solomon confirmed that he’s still in meetings trying to get Bill & Ted Face the Music made and that the film “keeps getting close” to a green-light… so what’s actually preventing it from happening?

One issue, he explained, is that Hollywood prefers the idea of a Bill & Ted reboot, as opposed to a straight sequel. “We are having issues raising money for it, getting it financed, because what we get all the time – all the time – is people wanting to reboot it.”

He continues: “It’s ‘Let’s do Bill & Ted with new teenagers’, but what we wanna do is the story of Bill and Ted as middle-aged men, and tell what we think could be a really funny, and actually really moving, story about their lives and where they are now – their families, their kids…”

After traveling through time, and going to both Heaven and Hell, Bill & Ted have yet to transport through dimensional time and space – something that could wrap up this heavy metal comedy franchise if it were to ever get the support it deserves.