The original Time Bandits movie had its roots in Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the 1970s British series that changed comedy forever. But the 1981 fantasy adventure about young Kevin and a band of light-fingered dwarfs bouncing through history wasn’t really a Python film, even if it was directed by the group’s American animator-turned-film-maker Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Michael Palin. Palin also starred in it, as did John Cleese in a brief role as a hilariously haughty Robin Hood.
Gilliam had come up with the film as a make-work family movie project while trying to get his next feature, Brazil, off the ground. But with its visual imagination, its black humour, its cuteness-free, Python-for-kids sensibilities, its band of merry little men and one major star, Sean Connery, it became a hit. That made it a rarity in the Gilliam film canon – one that made a profit.
The adventures of young suburban Kevin launched into a magical world still holds up today. The character suggests him as a sort of proto-Harry Potter – JK Rowling had reportedly originally wanted Gilliam as her first choice to direct the Potter films.
If you were a pre-teen kid when the film came out or the VHS tape arrived, it’s the sort of movie that might stick with you, especially its curiously bleak ending.
It did for Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, who, with English comedy writer Iain Morris, have turned Time Bandits into a 10-part television series, which, after filming in Wellington in late 2022, finally arrives on Apple TV+ this month.
“When I saw the film as a child, it was just what you wanted to happen – for someone to take you somewhere exciting,” Clement says in the production notes to the show. “It also takes inspiration from the fact that even with all the technology we have today, kids are still interested in history, in Ancient Egyptians, Vikings, and dinosaurs. My son is now around the same age as Kevin, the central character, and he loves history in the same way. The idea that you could go and see those things is really enticing.”
Waititi roped in Clement and Morris after he was offered the production by a conglomeration of US studios that had the remake rights.
If the original Time Bandits had its roots in Python, the new one has its own in the long Waititi-Clement creative partnership, from which sprang their 2014 vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, its American television version, and its local spin-off, Wellington Paranormal.
There are many Paranormal connections behind and in front of the camera. Actors Mike Minogue, Karen O’Leary and Maaka Pohatu have small roles and Jackie van Beek and Tim van Dammen, who directed on that show, are also directing Bandits episodes alongside Waititi and Clement, among others. The writers and story editors include Melanie Bracewell, who was a script mainstay on Paranormal.
Among other familiar Kiwi faces popping up in the series are Rachel House, unrecognisable as demon Fianna, as well as Ginette McDonald, Pax Assadi, and Josh Thomson in a scene that echoes a classic moment from the film.
Waititi and Clement star, respectively, as the Supreme Being, from whom the Bandits steal a time-travelling map, and Pure Evil, a devilish figure who wants the chart for his own. It gives Clement another chance to play another baritone-voiced baddie in a spectacular costume.
Despite the Kiwi contingent, it retains its English sensibilities. Young Kevin Haddock and his sister Saffron are played by Brit actors Kal-El Tuck and Kiera Thompson.
Budget-wise, it’s a much bigger deal than any previous Waititi-Clement joint efforts. According to NZ Film Commission figures, some $127 million was spent here, earning the production a rebate of $25m.
That paid for some 100 days of shooting, with 120 different sets replicating everything from 1920s Harlem to a Mayan city and a Neanderthal camp in the Ice Age. Post-production and special effects work was done elsewhere, so the show’s total budget rather, ah, dwarfs the US$5m spent on the original.
As with any remake of a film with a cult following and generational affections attached, there has been some heated discussion on the internet, mainly targeting how the high-profile Waititi might treat the story. Also causing some upset was the change to non-dwarf Bandits, who in this version are led by former Friends star Lisa Kudrow (all 1.73m of her).
The show also got unwanted headlines in May when one of the main cast, American comedian Charlyne Yi, playing Bandit “Judy”, posted on Instagram alleging that they were “physically assaulted multiple times by an actor” injuring their back and “psychologically abused” during the NZ shoot and forced to leave before completing all of Judy’s planned episodes.
Studio backer Paramount TV said it had “conducted a full investigation regarding allegations that were brought to our attention” and “additional steps were taken to address concerns”.
The frequently outspoken Gilliam, who was vocal when his 1995 film 12 Monkeys became a television series in 2015 – and one that lasted five seasons – has been quiet on the topic. Asked about it in a Variety story late last year, he replied: “Shhh, I can say nothing.”
Neither Palin nor Gilliam have executive-producer credits, which suggests they’ve had no direct creative input. But in his Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries Volume Two, 1980-88, Palin recalls seeing the film in its first week of release in the UK and not liking it much, so maybe he’s not all that attached to it.
In his 2015 memoir, Gilliamesque, the director wrote about an earlier remake offer. “When we were still developing Time Bandits, one of the reasons studios gave for turning it down was that nobody wanted to watch dwarfs. Or so they said. Thankfully, that proved not to be the case. Forty years later, HandMade Films was approached by Hollywood to license a new Time Bandits. It was pitched as a franchise of three films, and they were offering huge amounts of money Their only stipulation was ‘no dwarfs’. A simple ‘Fuck off!’ from yours truly nixed another Hollywood producer’s dream.”
Until that is, the age of streaming came along, and it seems Gilliam named his price.
Time Bandits debuts on Apple TV+ on July 24.
