Apple TV’s Time Bandits series has finally been given the green light, with Lisa Kudrow set to lead the all-star cast on the new adaptation of the Terry Gilliam fantasy movie. Having been originally put into development back in 2019, there have been few updates on the project, which will be written, directed and executive produced by Thor: Love and Thunder’s Taika Waititi. The rest of the cast includes Karl-El Tuck, Charlyne Yi, Tadhg Murphy, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, Rune Temte, Kiera Thompson and Rachel House.
The original Time Bandits movie was released in 1981 and has become a cult classic fantasy. Telling the story of an 11-year-old who goes on time-traveling adventures with a group of dwarfs who have stolen a map that charts the space-time fabric and every hole that can be used to travel through time and space. While the “Time Bandits” intend to make their way through history, stealing wealth, they bump into a number of figures from both history and legend, which was a theme later mirrored in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and other movies. The film featured a huge ensemble cast, including Sean Connery, John Cleese, Ian Holm, David Warner, Michael Palin and Shelley Duvall.
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The new series seems to be adapting the story without much change, being described as a “comedic journey through time and space with a ragtag group of thieves and their newest recruit: an eleven-year-old history nerd." Waititi is set to helm the opening two episodes of the 10-part series.
Time Bandits Could Be The Perfect Project For Taika Waititi
20th Century Studios
While Taika Waititi’s recent Marvel outing of Thor: Love and Thunder didn’t go down as well as expected with either audiences or critics, the Time Bandits series could be exactly the kind of zany comedy that Waititi is perfectly suited to. Waititi acted as co-writer on the pilot of the series, and while the project has been in development for four years now, it seems that Apple TV has opted to go straight to series.
The original Time Bandits was, in part, a feature-length expansion of Gilliam’s work with the Monty Python team, even including his fellow Pythons John Cleese and Michael Palin in the movie. Considering the unique and bizarre sense of humor that came with everything Gilliam and co were a part of, it is clearly going to be right up Waititi’s street, and the comedy elements of Thor: Love and Thunder that seemed to push the envelope just a little bit too far will be perfectly suited to the time traveling shenanigans.
Of course, Waititi is also busy working on a script for his Star Wars movie, which is apparently still moving ahead soon. While the writer/director recently said that the film will not be coming in the immediate future, he did provide a positive update that fans will definitely get to see it sometime relatively soon.
