Interview: Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement talk about their family-friendly adventure series Time Bandits

If you were an 80s kid, chances are that Time Bandits was a staple of your movie memories. The Terry Gilliam fantasy epic combined the wackiness of Monty Python comedy with an epic adventure through history. Produced by George Harrison, Time Bandits was the first part of a loose trilogy that includes Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. In the years since it premiered, Time Bandits has kept a cult following and is now back with a new iteration from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement.

In the new Time Bandits, Kevin (Kal-El Tuck) has few friends, and his family thinks his fascination with history is weird. When the Time Bandits, led by Penelope (Lisa Kudrow), land in his bedroom, Kevin joins the ragtag crew through various eras of history ranging from the Trojan War to Prohibition and beyond. On their trail are the forces of the Supreme Being (Taika Waititi) and Pure Evil (Jemaine Clement), who want the Bandits’ stolen map so they can reign over the whole universe.

I chatted with series creators and stars Waititi and Clement about their new take on the classic film. Taika Waititi, who also directed several episodes, talked about bringing the same whimsy and humor the duo brought to What We Do In The Shadows to a show appropriate for all ages. Jemaine Clement talked about how they chose which embodiments of good and evil they would play in the show and their memories of Terry Gilliam’s film. Check out the full interview in the embed above.

Time Bandits premieres on July 24th on AppleTV+.