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Time Bandits was a rare “one and done” series for Apple. The show, based on the 1981 fantasy-adventure film by Terry Gilliam, was abruptly cancelled last year despite fairly decent reviews.
Gilliam thinks he knows why. In a typically outspoken interview with la Repubblica (via World of Reel), the often controversial director says that the show’s failure was down to its lack of little people in the cast, many of whom were featured in the original film. Gilliam also claims execs said that casting actors of short stature wouldn’t work for a teenage audience.
“They kept it from me for months that there were no dwarves in the series – something I consider structural to that story,” Gilliam explained. “When I found out, it was too late, and that’s why the series failed.”
It seems Gilliam was also unhappy with the direction the new series was taking after finally reading some scripts, explicitly calling out the show’s co-creator and star, Taika Waititi, as someone he was initially glad to see take the reins of a new reimagining of his film, but who he suggests ultimately let him down.
“They brought me in as a non-writing executive producer, and I thought I had a bit of control, but when I read the scripts, I didn’t like them,” he said. “Taika Waititi, the director whose Jojo Rabbit I loved and to whom I thought I was handing the project, wasn’t really involved; his subsequent films were disappointing.”
Waititi, who shot the new version of Time Bandits over in New Zealand with longtime collaborator Jemaine Clement and star Lisa Kudrow, told Entertainment Weekly last year that the show never got a second season simply because it was “too expensive” to make.
Time Bandits was the first installment in Gilliam’s “Trilogy of Imagination,” followed by Brazil in 1985 and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen in 1988. The film was a critical and commercial success, and is often cited as one of the best family movies ever made. A sequel was planned in the 1990s but shelved after several cast members passed away.
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