Apple TV+ is taking a bite out of time crime, and it’s starting, appropriately enough, with Time Bandits, the big-budget sequel series to Terry Gilliam’s ’80s fantasy comedy. Per Deadline, the series, created by Taika Waiti, Jemaine Clement, and Iain Morris, has been canceled by Apple, making it another sign that streaming’s purse strings may be tightening.
It’s a story as old as time: Time Bandits had difficulty finding viewers, failing to crack Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming rankings. That’s hardly a surprise. With a reputation as “the biggest spender in town,” Apple reportedly attracts a fraction of the viewership of its competitors. Not that that matters too much, considering Apple is a trillion-dollar company, the most valuable on earth, so spending $20 million an episode on Severance is a drop in the bucket. But Apple wants to turn the money spigot off because it can’t justify spending potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on a Time Bandits show no one has heard of, let alone is watching.
Apple’s marketing can leave much to be desired with its streaming series. Despite spending a fortune on stars and production, Apple rarely uses its massive cultural footprint to alert people to the existence of shows like Bad Monkey and Palm Springs. The streamer’s biggest hit, Ted Lasso, broke out thanks to word of mouth, strong reviews, and a pandemic that caused millions to go through all the shows clogging up their Netflix queues. The same cannot be said for Swagger, a show based on Kevin Durant’s life, which ran for two seasons, or the recently released Sunny, starring Rashida Jones.
Apple’s shows look expensive, feature stars, and boast some of Hollywood’s best artists and craftspeople. The quality of these shows is rarely questioned, and the same is true for Time Bandits, which faired well with critics, including here at the A.V. Club, where it was warmly reviewed by Meredith Hobbs Coons, who called it something “the whole family could enjoy together. What more could someone ask for? But a show as expensive as Time Bandits needs to be a tentpole for the streamer, a reason for people to subscribe and stay subscribed. That may be too much to ask from a quirky time travel show based on a cult movie from the ’80s. Just ask Dark Crystal: The Age Of Resistance.