Their Hometown Tells ‘Bill & Ted’ No Way, for Now

Talk about a bogus journey!

San Dimas’ only movie house isn’t showing the hot new “Bill & Ted” sequel--even though the blissed-out teen-age characters again supposedly hail from that foothill ‘burb.

So, to check out “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” these days, San Dimas dudes and dudettes must journey at least as far as Glendora, where the dopey, hard-partying adventure opened last week.

“We have to play the picture that will bring in the most amount of business,” said Jamie Gibson, manager of San Dimas’ one-screen Canyon Theatre, which does plan to screen “Bill & Ted” later this summer.

The Canyon is currently showing “Robin Hood” and next plans to present “Terminator 2.” “You can’t just pick a movie because it was set in San Dimas.”

Still, as far as local officials are concerned, just getting a mention in a major motion picture is a bodacious civic bonus, even if they have to wait awhile before it comes to their Western-themed town.

“It’s a cute story . . . and very positive for the community,” Mayor Terry Dipple said. “As I understand the new plot, they spend some time in hell--but there’s no correlation between that and San Dimas.”

Of course, a touchy point about “Bogus Journey,” as well as its 1989 predecessor, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” is that neither was really filmed in San Dimas. Although the first movie had a few aerial shots of the town, Orion Pictures says the sequel features no San Dimas footage.

“The reason is that it was mostly interior shots . . . done on sound stages,” said James Grant, a spokesman for the studio. “There’s nothing masquerading as San Dimas, in other words.”

Early reports of the movie, however, indicate that it may contain at least a few ersatz San Dimas scenes. A building that is supposed to be the “San Dimas Civic Auditorium,” for instance, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

“Maybe if local residents were in the picture or the mayor had a cameo appearance . . . then it might have more of a citywide appeal,” said Gibson, whose Canyon Theatre is one of the San Gabriel Valley’s last remaining single-screen movie houses. “But it’s all fictitious.”