Normally, on any given day, some of us here at ScreenAnarchy would bemoan any attempt to adapt peak-Terry Gilliam content. Gilliam's 1981 film Time Bandits being no exception.
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!
But the adaptation of Time Bandits over at Apple just got really, really... really interesting. Nearly forgivable. The trades are reporting that Kiwi director Taika Waititi will co-write and direct the pilot episode of Apple's Time Bandits series.
Thor: Ragnarok filmmaker Taika Waititi has boarded Time Bandits, the TV series adaptation of the beloved Terry Gilliam-directed movie, which is in development at Apple.Waititi will co-write and direct the pilot for the potential series, co-produced by Anonymous Content, Paramount Television and Media Rights Capital. He also will serve as executive producer alongside Gilliam and producer Dan Halsted (People Of Earth).Apple last summer made a deal for the rights to turn the 1981 fantasy into a TV series. Gilliam’s Time Bandits is a dark, irreverent adventure about imagination, bravery and the nature of our dreams. It follows the time-traveling adventures of an 11-year-old history buff named Kevin who, one night, stumbles on six dwarfs who emerge from his closet. They are former workers of the Supreme Being who have stolen a map that charts all the holes in the space-time fabric, using it to hop from one historical era to the next in order to steal riches. Throughout the movie, they meet various historical and fictional characters, including Napoleon Bonaparte and Robin Hood, while the Supreme Being simultaneously tries to catch up to them and retrieve the map.
Waititi shot to global fame with Ragnarok. He had won our favor before that with projects like What We Do In The Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Boy and Eagle vs. Shark. His humor can be sardonic, sarcastic and sharp, much like the dry whit in Time Bandits. We would be perhaps hesitant to call this anything but a perfect match but golly, as mentioned earlier, this just got really, really... really interesting.