Taika Waititi is certainly proving he is hot property, the New Zealander is certainly not short of work offers. The filmmaker has signed up to co-write and direct a ‘Time Bandits’ series pilot for Apple.
The series will likely follow Terry Gilliam’s feature film story about the time-travelling adventures of an eleven-year-old history buff who 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. With the kid tagging along, the group use the chart to hop from one historical era to the next in order to steal riches and meet various historical and fictional characters. At the same time, the malevolent being Evil is attempting to acquire the map and remake the universe to his design.
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Gilliam will serve as an executive producer on the series alongside Waititi and Dan Halsted.
The 1981 feature film was written and directed by Gilliam and starred Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Peter Vaughn, and David Warner. Gilliam refers to ‘Time Bandits’ as the first in his “Trilogy of Imagination”, followed by ‘Brazil’ (1985) and ending with ‘The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’ (1988). The film received critical acclaim and grossed over US$40 million on a budget of $5 million (£2.2 million).
Waititi upcoming projects include a directed episode of Disney+ ‘Star Wars’ series ‘The Mandalorian’, ‘Jojo Rabbit’ in which he directs and stars alongside Scarlett Johannsson and Sam Rockwell.