WIRE Buzz: Terry Pratchett animated Discworld; Bill & Ted phone booth; Toy Story 4

Today’s WIRE Buzz is full of stuff to make your ‘80s nostalgia tingle. Whether it’s a giant novelty item representing your intense adoration for time travel and excellence or a movie taking you back to Discworld, some of today’s genre news should make fans happy.

First, let’s talk Terry Pratchett. The renowned genre author recently had a posthumous adaptation of Good Omens set the nerd world ablaze with its apocalyptic fun, but now one of his other books is getting the screen treatment. According to Variety, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents will become an animated feature — the first of any Pratchett story to receive such treatment.

The first Discworld book for kids (and the 28th overall), The Amazing Maurice already has a screenplay, from Shrek and Aladdin scribe Terry Rossio, and character designs, from Ratatouille's Carter Goodrich. The film — about a cat, some rats, and a modern Pied Piper — will be a joint German and Irish production, with German animation mainstay Toby Genkel set to direct the movie with a $17M budget.

The Amazing Maurice looks to start production at the end of the year for a 2022 release.

Next, prepare to say “Whoa,” dude. That time-travelling telephone booth from the Bill & Ted series? Fans can soon own their own. And Bill & Ted Day brought out another pleasant surprise for those feverishly anticipating Keanu Reeves’ mind-boggled antics: a first look at some storyboards from the upcoming third film.

What in the world did those two find? Are they looking, once again, at an old-school phone booth in that picture posted by star Alex Winter? That might be the case, which is why fans might want to hop on this deal.

According to a release, Cubicall is releasing a 30th anniversary edition of the Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure booth that features a real payphone (“retrofitted for VOIP/landline service”) and a time travel antenna to complete the look. Unfortunately, according to its website, “due to retrofitting of the payphone, booths cannot travel time.” Bogus.

Fans can order the most tranquil booths this fall, with plenty of time to install them for when the third movie hits theaters in the summer of 2020.

Finally, speaking of Keanu Reeves, one of the actor's new projects released some hilarious behind-the-scenes footage. Toy Story 4, which stars Reeves as motorcycle-riding daredevil Duke Caboom, showed off a ton of voice acting footage from its actors including Reeves and the legendary Tom Hanks.

Check it out:

Masters at work. Tim Allen, Keegan-Michael Key, Annie Potts, and Tony Hale all also show off the voice acting process. Running 11 minutes, this video provides a ton of info that never quite spoils the movie, but certainly gives those anticipating the film a clearer idea of how their favorites will interact in a movie that's already impressing critics.

Toy Story 4 hits theaters on June 20.