William Gallagher
Apple TV+ time-travelling fantasy has run out of time — Taika Waititi's "Time Bandits" will not return for a second season.
The aim of turning the 1981 hot movie "Time Bandits" into a series for Apple TV+ has been going on since before the streamer even launched. Back in 2018, the show was known to be in active development.
Deadline, which broke the news of the cancellation, says that Apple bought the rights to the movie from a consortium including Paramount Television Studios. Just as with the original film, the TV version was produced by the UK's HandMade Films.
Despite a cast that starred Lisa Kudrow, and a crew that included creators Jemaine Clement, Iain Morris and Taika Waititi, the show failed to attract a large enough audience in the US. It reportedly fared better in the UK, but not enough to warrant continuing.
The cancellation comes after it's been reported that Apple has been trying to trim the budget for Apple TV+. Just on theatrical releases of its movies, Apple is said to have budgeted $1 billion annually — although it's now also cut back on this.
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
10 Comments
This is one of those shows where you wonder why they were so interested in the original IP if they didn't have a very good idea of what to do with it.
I saw that someone "remade" Time Bandits and just thought WHY?
Just go to Terry Gilliam's original film. Absolutely GREAT!
I really wanted to like it and really wanted it to be good but it had no idea what it wanted to be. Essentially it just wasn't funny or silly or crazy enough and it just became oddly repetitive which given the cast and the budgets and the expansive nature of we can go anywhere in time... ought to have helped. I think it honestly missed Gilliam's madness. It felt like an homage rather than its own thing. Or maybe, Time Bandits really is just a movie and can't hold the expansion of a longer treatment. But kudos for trying...