Lisa Kudrow has been cast as the lead in Time Bandits, Taika Waititi’s upcoming Apple TV series based on Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film.
Gilliam’s film centers around the time-traveling adventures of Kevin, an 11-year-old history buff, who incidentally finds six dwarfs who’ve emerged from his closet. But it looks like Waititi’s follow-up to What We Do in the Shadows might look a little different than the fantasy movie we know and love: Deadline confirms that Kudrow will play a presumably new character named Penelope, as the series expands on the premise of its film predecessor.
Kal-El Tuck (Unseeing Evil), Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up), Tadhg Murphy (Conversations With Friends), Roger Jean Nsengiyumva (You Don’t Know Me), Rune Temte (Eddie the Eagle), Kiera Thompson (Martyrs Lane), and Rachel House (Heartbreak High) will join Kudrow as regular cast members in the series, which has been greenlit for 10 episodes.
The Time Bandits series is produced by Paramount Television Studios, Anonymous Content’s AC Studios, and MRC Television. Stay tuned here for more information as details roll out.
Also coming up on Waititi’s agenda is the third season of his FX comedy Reservation Dogs, which was confirmed shortly after its Season 2 finale aired; that’s set to premiere in 2023 on Hulu, as is Waititi’s upcoming Star Wars film. The New Zealand filmmaker also spearheaded the Chris Hemsworth-starring Thor: Love and Thunder, which came out in July.
As for Kudrow, she reunited with her former co-stars David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc last year for the one-off HBO Max special Friends: The Reunion, during which she reprised “Smelly Cat” as a duet with Lady Gaga.