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Terry Gilliam to Attack His Don Quixote Project Yet Again

by Brandon Lee Tenney
January 16, 2009
Source: Empire

After nearly ten years, Terry Gilliam has re-attained the rights to his inauspicious script, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Looks like he's finally ready to take another run at what has been an ill-fated and untouchable windmill. The adaptation of Cervantes' novel has seen its fair share of attention in the past with the debacle that was the 2000 production. This first attempt disintegrated before his (and our) eyes in a series of unwelcome and uncontrollable calamities. The unfortunate production was captured in the documentary Lost in La Mancha, while only 6 minutes of the original remain (which you can watch here).

These on-set mishaps led to the film's cancellation and the script's rights passed to the insurance companies involved in production, meaning Gilliam couldn't go back to it even if he wanted to. If you're interested in more, you can catch up on it all of it here and here if you wish.

It's taken nearly six years since litigation began for Gilliam to re-acquire the rights to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, but Gilliam and his writing partner Tony Grisoni have begun writing the quixotic adventure yet again and hope to have a finalized script within the next month (as reported on Empire). Reportedly, Johnny Depp (who has oft been rumored to play Quixote) is still attached to the project. Just like Quixote in many respects, Gilliam has lost none of his decade-long fervor for the project or the character, stating "I was lucky... maybe the film will be better seven years later. It will have matured a bit longer."

Well, here's to hoping Gilliam and company can make it all the way through production this time around. Or is The Man Who Killed Don Quixote an exercise in ill-fated irony? Will it get made?

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