Christopher Walken and Stephen Merchant do community service in The Outlaws trailer
The Outlaws is an unlikely collaboration between The Office co-creator Stephen Merchant and Elgin James, creator of Mayans M.C.
It’s not every day that Stephen Merchant does a buddy comedy with Christopher Walken, but we wish it were. In the upcoming comedy series The Outlaws, premiering on Amazon this April, Merchant and Walken play two guys who are unceremoniously sentenced to community service, find a butt-load of cash in a ceiling, and learn a little thing about life and family along the way.
Isn’t it a joy hearing Merchant say, “ill repute”? He really hits that “T.”
The series is a collaboration between Merchant, the creator of The Office, and Elgin James, the creator of Mayans M.C. And, boy, does it look like a combination of those two shows.
Here’s the synopsis:
The Outlaws is a comedy thriller about a disparate group of lawbreakers thrown together to complete a community service sentence. Seven strangers from different walks of life are forced to work together to renovate a derelict community center. When one of their number gets dragged into a dangerous world of organized crime, they unite in ways none of them thought possible. The series stars Rhianne Barreto (Hanna, Dixi) as Rani, Gamba Cole (Hanna, Guerrilla) as Christian, Stephen Merchant as Greg, Christopher Walken (Severance, The Deer Hunter) as Frank, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark, The Nevers) as Lady Gabriela, Darren Boyd (Trying, Fortitude) as John, Clare Perkins (The Wheel of Time, Suspicion) as Myrna, and Jessica Gunning (Back, Fortitude) as Diane.
The series initially premiered last October on BBC One after COVID shutdowns delayed the production. Also, Banksy painted a rat on the set, and Christopher Walken painted over it. That’s one of those sentences you only get the opportunity to write a handful of times in your career, so excuse this writer for taking it.
“We can confirm that the artwork at the end of The Outlaws was an original Banksy, and that Christopher Walken painted over that artwork during the filming of this scene, ultimately destroying it,” a spokesperson for the show said at the time.
Outlaws premieres on Amazon on April 1.