“God isn’t interested in technology,” Evil observed in Terry Gilliam’s cult film Time Bandits. “He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. If I were creating a world, I wouldn’t mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, day one!” Nearly 40 years after George Harrison’s Handmade Films released Time Bandits to big screens, Apple will adapt it into a television series.
Released in 1981, Time Bandits was the first film in Gilliam’s “Trilogy of Imagination,” which included Brazil in 1985 and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which came out in 1988. The fantasy was co-written and directed by Gilliam, the former animator of Monty Python who also made Meaning of Life, 12 Monkeys, the underappreciated Tideland, The Fisher King and his latest film, the beleaguered The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam will not direct this series, but will be a non-writing executive producer, alongside Anonymous and MRC.
Time Bandits director
In the latest news on the Time Bandits TV project, Taika Waititi is now set to direct and co-write the pilot, according to Deadline. It’s quite the coup for the would-be series, with Waititi currently riding a lot of momentum, having recently directed 2017’s outlandishly action-packed interplanetary Marvel sequel, Thor: Ragnarok; a gig that he procured after successes behind and in front of cameras for 2016 adventure-comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople and 2014 vampire quasi-documentary comedy What We Do in the Shadows, which is about to debut a promising-looking small screen serial adaptation on FX later this month. Waititi’s TV backlog notably includes director’s chair time for the Star Wars Disney+ streaming series, The Mandalorian.
Waititi will also serve as executive producer on the project alongside Terry Gilliam, joined by producer Dan Halsted (People of Earth) and co-producers in Anonymous Content, Paramount Television and Media Rights Capital.
Time Bandits release date
It’s unlikely we’ll see this before 2020, but we’re choosing to get excited about this series immediately. No judgement, please!
Time Bandits plot
Time Bandits follows an 11-year-old boy named Kevin, played by Craig Warnock, as he’s chased by the Supreme Being for unwittingly helping a group of six time-traveling dwarves who are ripping off historical luminaries. The film co-starred John Cleese as Robin Hood, Ian Holm as Napoleon Bonaparte, Sean Connery as King Agamemnon, Shelly Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Michael Palin, Peter Vaughn and David Warner. Made for $5 million, it pulled in $42 million at the box office.
Handmade Films was a small production company former Beatles guitarist Harrison formed with Denis O’Brien to fund the 1979 Monty Python film Life of Brian, which was directed by Python’s Terry Jones. The company also made Mona Lisa, Withnail & I, Shanghai Surprise and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, before it was disbanded.
Apple, not to be confused with The Beatles’ Apple Corps, or their Apple Computer or Apple Film companies, will also stream an original TV series based on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, relaunch Steven Spielberg’s 1980s sci-fi anthology series Amazing Stories, and develop the sci-fi series See with Battlestar Galactica‘s Ronald D. Moore.