In the nearly 10 years since the filming of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote fell apart just a week into production, writer/director Terry Gilliam has not stopped trying to get his dream project back in front of the cameras. It now looks as if he might actually be achieving his decade’s long dream.
Gilliam is teaming with British producer Jeremy Thomas to revive the film, with plans to start filming early next spring. It remains to be seen if Gilliam will roll cameras on the thriller The Zero Theorem before Quixote. He was supposed to have started work on Theorem this month.
Gilliam’s original script called for a modern-day advertising exec, who would have been played by Johnny Depp, to travel back in time and be mistaken for Sancho Panza by Don Quixote. Gilliam and co-writer Tony Grisoni, have reworked to script so it is now a filmmaker who becomes Quixote’s reluctant companion.
If this were any other long simmering, on-again/off-again project, I’d say I’d believe the film was actually happening when it is reported that filming had begun. However, with The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, history has shown that even the start of filming is an indicator that we will see a finished film. The tale of the disintegration of Gilliam’s first attempt to make the film were captured in the heartbreaking documentary Lost In La Mancha. I’m hoping that any potential sequel documentary will have a happier ending.
Via Variety.
