Taika Waititi: 'Time Bandits' show expands upon, doesn't copy 'brilliant' film

NEW YORK, July 24 (UPI) -- Time Bandits creator Taika Waititi says his new sci-fi comedy series goes places the 1981 Terry Gilliam film on which it was based couldn't because of its two-hour run time and the technology limitations of the era.

"The movie's so brilliant. It's so iconic in his own way. It would be ridiculous for us to set out to just copy that completely because it already exists," the Oscar winner told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

"It was up to us to find an angle where we could just put a bit more of ourselves into it," Waititi said with a nod to longtime collaborator Jemaine Clement sitting beside him.

"We'd spend more time with various characters and develop them a bit further than what you could do with the movie. So, that was quite exciting."

Premiering Wednesday on Apple TV+, the show follows British, 11-year-old history buff Kevin (Kal-El Tuck) as he joins the titular time-hoppers who magically appear in his closet on hilarious, death-defying adventures through the past.

The cast for the 10-episode series includes Lisa Kudrow , Tadhg Murphy, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, Rune Temte, Charlyne Yi, Rachel House, Kiera Thompson, James Dryden, Felicity Ward and Francesca Mills.

Clement and Waititi will guest star. The duo also previously collaborated on What We Do in the Shadows, Flight of the Conchords and Eagle vs. Shark .

"We made a big list of places that we just always wanted to see someone time travel to," Waititi said.

"When they made that movie in 1980, they couldn't show dinosaurs, for instance. Here we can," Clement added. "We didn't want to use too much from Terry Gilliam's visual style. I feel like it is his property, and if we went to imitate that, it's like we've taken something from him."

Clement emphasized their reimaging of the film comes from a place of love, since he and Waititi were fans of the movie as kids.

"We had rewatched it as adults and got to revisit it to do this," he said. "I think we just tried to remember what we liked rather than try and remake it."

Some of the ideas from the movie -- such as a time-travel map and giant head chasing the heroes -- were so good the filmmakers said they just had to include them.

"We have some other things: Lisa's character is the leader of the group and denies being a leader, but obviously she doesn't leave anyone else to make any decisions. That's one of those things that we remember and try to put in," Clement said.

"But we also wanted to go some places that we haven't seen on screen before and [introduce] some characters we haven't seen before."

One of the fresh faces viewers will see is 12-year-old Kal-El, who frequently steals the show by portraying his character's warmth, courage and unbridled enthusiasm.

"He's amazing. We auditioned a lot of kids. All of the kids were great," Waititi said. "All children in the world are great. They are wonderful. They are gifts."

Clement laughed and added, "But Kal-El just popped out."

"We liked that he didn't sound posh," Clement added. "He is from the north of England."

Waititi added, "As soon as we heard his voice on tape, we heard him being this nerdy expert in history in this thick Yorkshire accent, it just felt so right,"

He said he hopes the show appeals to multiple generations.

"It's getting more and more rare to see a show that the entire family can watch together that isn't super-dumbed-down or basically a kids' show that adults have to watch," Waititi said.

Clement added, "There are so many shows and they are so specific [that] there's one person in the family who will watch it, and then Dad and Mom will watch something else.

"Hopefully, it's a communal thing for the family."

Waititi also recently starred in the Max pirate comedy, Our Flag Means Death; directed Next Goal Wins and Thor: Love and Thunder, and co-created the FX series, Reservation Dogs.