New Zealand filmmaker, actor, and comedian — best known for directing Thor: Ragnarok — is developing an adaptation of Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film, Time Bandits for Apple as a TV series, reports TheWrap.
He’ll co-write and direct the pilot for the potential series, which is being co-produced by Anonymous Content, Paramount Television and Media Rights Capital. Waititi also will serve as executive producer alongside Gilliam and producer Dan Halsted.
Here’s a summary of the series, per TheWrap: “Time Bandits 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.”
This will be Apple’s 30th scripted series. Upcoming original programming titles from Apple include:
“Amazing Stores,”
“Are You Sleeping,”
“Home,” “Little America,”
“See,”
An untitled Damien Chazelle drama,
an untitled Reese Witherspoon/Jennifer Anniston/Steve Carrell dramedy, “Dickinson” (a half-hour comedy starring Hailee Stenifeld),
an Ronald D. Moore science-fiction drama dubbed “For All Mankind,”
An untitled M. Night Shyamalan thriller series,
A TV series adaption of “Foundation,” the Isaac Asimov science fiction novel trilogy,
The half-hour dramedy “Little Voices” from producers J.J. Abrams and Sara Bareilles,
“Little America” from the screenwriters (Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani) of “The Big Sick” and producer/writer Lee Eisenberg,
A drama series about pre-teen investigative reporter Hilde Lysiak,
A TV series based on the “Time Bandits” movie,
An English-language adaptation of the French short-form series Canal+, “See,” a world-building drama set in the future,
A series based on the bestselling 2017 novel “Pachinko,”
A half-hour scripted comedy from Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, “Defending Jacob” starring Chris Evans,
A series produced by Anonymous Content and based on the New York Times article, “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change,”
An AAU basketball drama series dubbed Swagger from NBA superstar Kevin Durant,
“My Glory Was I Had Such Friends,” a limited TV series for Apple. The one-hour limited drama stars and is executive produced by Jennifer Garner and executive produced by J.J. Abrams via his Bad Robot Productions banner. Based on the 2017 memoir of the same name by Amy Silverstein, “the story showcases the power of friendship and the resilience of the human spirit as it follows an extraordinary group of women who supported Silverstein as she waited for a second life-saving heart transplant.”
Original series, specials, and shorts based on the “Peanuts” gang of characters created by Charles M. Schulz.
An untitled drama series starring Brie Larson that’s based on the life experiences of undercover CIA operative Amaryllis Fox and her upcoming memoir Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA.
