One of the quirkiest TV shows in development at Apple may have just found the perfect director to lead its merry band of time traveling dwarfs into the 21st century.
Apple has reportedly hired Taika Waititi to direct Apple’s TV adaptation of Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy movie Time Bandits. The project is still in development, but if you saw Waititi’s last movie, Thor: Ragnarok you know he has a knack for making absurd storylines absolutely magical.
Written and directed by Terry Gilliam, Time Bandits follows a young boy who accidentally joins a band of time-traveling dwarves that jump from era to era looking for treasure to steal. They travel to the Napoleonic times, Middle Ages, the early 1900s, the time of Legends and the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness where they confront Evil.
Waititi will direct and co-write the pilot while executive producing alongside Gilliam and producer Dan Halsted, according to Variety. The project is being co-produced by Paramount TV, Anonymous Content, and Media Rights Capital.
The original movie starred Gilliam’s long-time Monty Python collaborator John Cleese, and Sir Sean Connery. Other than the Thor movie, Waititi two highly-regarded indie comedies, Hunt for the Wilderpeopl and What We Do In the Shadows, the latter of which is being turned into a TV show for Fox. He also directed an episode of Disney’s Star Wars series, The Mandalorian.
