Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s ‘Time Bandits’ TV Series Has ‘Monty Python’ Vibes

We are about to go back in time. Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement have created the remake of Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy classic Time Bandits for Apple TV with Iain Morris, starring Friends legend Lisa Kudrow. In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Waititi and Clement previewed the upcoming series, which will debut on July 24. Time Bandits follows an 11-year-old history geek named Kevin (Kal-El Tuck) as he journeys through the centuries with a group of marauders led by Kudrow’s Penelope. The new reimagining of the classic movie will have ten episodes.

Waititi and Clement were major fans of the original film which starred John Cleese, Sean Connery, and Shelley Duvall. “It was just nothing I’d really ever seen before,” Waititi says. “I remember being freaked out by a lot of it. A lot of the kids’ films back then were not as inventive and imaginative.”

“I was pretty young, so it would have been one of the bigger introductions to Terry Gilliam and British comedy,” Clement adds. “Seeing John Cleese as Robin Hood is still one of the funniest scenes in any movie, I think.” Waititi also opened up about how he wanted to work with Kudrow for years as he and Clement admired her work from afar, particularly in HBO’s The Comeback. “I just love Lisa Kudrow and thought it’d be awesome to see her leading a band of idiots through time,” he explained.

Waititi also teases that a few familiar faces might pop up throughout the series. “I loved working with the cast and all the actors that we got in,” Waititi said. “We have repeat actors who change roles throughout the different episodes. They have that in the film as well. It’s kind of the Monty Python thing, where people come back and play a different character.”

‘Time Bandits’ Will Follow the Plot of the Original

Matt King, George Houvardas, Zoe Ventoura, Rachel House, Rune Temt, Charlyne Yi, Tadhg Murphy, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, and Kiera Thompson also join the cast alongside Tuck and Kudrow. Temt will play the role of Bittelig and Yi will play Judy. Waititi and Clement praised Tuck, who plays the lead, for embracing the quirky comedy and learning how to improvise alongside Kudrow.

Time Bandits is not the only project that Waititi and Clement have collaborated on. They have been friends for decades and came together to create stunning projects such as What We Do in the Shadows and Flight of the Conchords. Given the classic history of Time Bandits and a star-studded main cast led by Kudrow, this new series is their most anticipated collaboration yet. Waititi also had several recent projects reach headlines. Next Goal Wins, his sports comedy-drama that starred Michael Fassbender was released last year. He is also developing a new sci-fi adaptation Klara and the Sun, starring Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega and the six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams.

Time Bandits premieres on July 24 on Apple TV. You can watch the original 1981 classic on HBO.

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